A new study done by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, with those from the University of Southern Denmark – has shown that men who do regular weight training, may be able to reduce the risk of getting type 2 diabetes.
The results of the study are quite significant, with the weight training alone showing up to a 34% reduction in type 2 diabetes risk. And when aerobic exercise was combined with weight training, the risk was reduced further to 59%.
It has been known that aerobic exercise could be beneficial in preventing type 2 diabetes, but now the study is showing how weight lifting and resistance training is increasing the benefits.
This is a good thing because it is a way to diversify exercise for better physical fitness, and it gives an alternative form of exercise for those who may have problems doing aerobic exercise.
“Until now, previous studies have reported that aerobic exercise is of major importance for type 2 diabetes prevention,” said lead author Anders Grøntved, visiting researcher in the Department of Nutrition at HSPH and a doctoral student in exercise epidemiology at the University of Southern Denmark. “But many people have difficulty engaging in or adhering to aerobic exercise. These new results suggest that weight training, to a large extent, can serve as an alternative to aerobic exercise for type 2 diabetes prevention.”
It is also interesting to note these findings in the context of fat burning and weight loss, where lifting weights has been shown to give better results the aerobics alone. The reason for this is because the high intensity interval training nature of lifting weights definitely has aerobic benefits, including the continuation of fat burning for hours after the exercise was done.
This study was published in the ‘Archives of Internal Medicine’ – below is a link for more information and the Harvard School of Public Health press release:
Weight Training Associated With Reduced Risk of Type 2 Diabetes
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