You’ve probably heard it a thousand times – to get healthier, you need to exercise and lose weight.
But how about this: exercise coupled with just a 10% weight loss could supercharge your health, especially if you’re dealing with obesity and prediabetes.
This powerful combo can keep prediabetes from turning into full-blown type 2 diabetes and also reduce heart disease risk. Cool, right?
The Bad Guy: Insulin Resistance
Before we move on, let’s introduce you to a villain named Insulin Resistance. Dr. Samuel Klein, a senior scientist, explains that insulin resistance is a big problem for people with obesity.
It can lead to type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, and abnormal blood fats. The body becomes resistant to insulin – a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar – which then causes blood sugar levels to rise. Not good!
The Study: Diet vs Diet + Exercise
So, 16 volunteers who were obese and had prediabetes signed up for a study. Half of them followed a diet and lost 10% of their body weight. The other half did the same but also exercised several times a week.
Dr. Klein pointed out that exercise usually doesn’t affect body weight much in people with obesity. But in this study, those who combined exercise with weight loss saw significant improvements.
Their bodies became much better at responding to insulin, which lowered their diabetes risk. It seems exercise and weight loss together are a super team!
A Troubling Statistic: Prediabetes
Here’s a scary fact: about one in every three adults in America – that’s possibly 96 million people – have prediabetes.
Plus, more than 37 million people in the United States have diabetes, and over 40% are obese. Since obesity is linked to diabetes, these numbers are pretty alarming.
The Verdict: Move it, Lose it!
Given these results, Dr. Klein strongly suggests that exercise should always be part of weight management. It seems this powerful duo – exercise and weight loss – can be a game-changer for people struggling with obesity and prediabetes.
So, if you’re ready to improve your health, maybe it’s time to lace up those sneakers, grab an apple, and take a step in the right direction!
If you care about diabetes, please read studies that the MIND diet may reduce the risk of vision loss disease, and Vitamin D could benefit people with diabetic neuropathic pain.
For more information about diabetes, please see recent studies that Vitamin E could help reduce blood sugar and insulin resistance in diabetes, and results showing eating eggs in a healthy diet may reduce risks of diabetes and high blood pressure.
The study was published in Nature Metabolism.
Follow us on Twitter for more articles about this topic.
Copyright © 2023 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
