A new study from Italy shows that even a single 30-minute session of aerobic exercise can improve how the body handles sugar and uses insulin—key factors in preventing type 2 diabetes. The research was carried out at the Centro per le Malattie Endocrine e Metaboliche and is published in the Journal of Endocrinological Investigation.
It’s well known that regular exercise helps lower the risk of type 2 diabetes by improving how the body manages glucose (sugar) and responds to insulin. However, this study focused on a different question: Can just one session of exercise make a measurable difference? The answer, according to the researchers, is yes.
The study involved 32 healthy young adults between the ages of 20 and 35. None of the participants had diabetes, took medications, or were involved in competitive sports. All of them took part in an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), a standard medical test used to measure how well the body handles sugar after drinking a sugary solution.
After the initial test, each participant completed a 30-minute light jogging session, at a moderate intensity (about 60–65% of their maximum aerobic capacity, or VO₂max). The following day, they repeated the OGTT to measure how their bodies responded to sugar after the single exercise session.
The results were clear and encouraging:
- Fasting blood sugar dropped from 82.8 mg/dL to 78.5 mg/dL.
- One-hour post-load glucose (blood sugar measured one hour after drinking the sugary drink) dropped from 122.8 mg/dL to 111.8 mg/dL.
- Insulin levels at the one-hour mark also decreased—from 57.4 µUI/ml to 43.5 µUI/ml.
In addition, several key markers of insulin sensitivity improved:
- The Matsuda index, a measure of how sensitive the body is to insulin, rose from 7.79 to 9.02.
- The QUICKI index, another insulin sensitivity marker, increased from 0.36 to 0.38.
- The HOMA-IR index, which estimates insulin resistance, fell from 1.51 to 1.28, showing less resistance to insulin after the workout.
These results show that even just one workout can have immediate benefits for how the body handles sugar and responds to insulin. That’s important because poor glucose control and low insulin sensitivity are key early steps in the development of type 2 diabetes.
Review and Analysis
This study adds to growing evidence that physical activity doesn’t need to be frequent or intense to be helpful—even a single, moderate session can improve blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity the very next day.
What makes this study especially relevant is that it focused on young, healthy individuals, a group that might not think much about their future diabetes risk. Yet researchers used a 1-hour post-load glucose measurement, a marker increasingly recognized as a strong predictor of future type 2 diabetes, even in people who otherwise seem healthy.
The takeaway? You don’t need to wait for long-term results to benefit from exercise. A 30-minute walk or jog today could make your body more efficient at processing sugar tomorrow—potentially lowering your long-term risk of diabetes.
While the study was small and short-term, the results are promising. Larger and longer studies will be needed to see how long these benefits last and whether similar effects occur in older adults or people at higher risk for diabetes. But for now, the message is simple and empowering: even small amounts of exercise can have real health benefits—starting right away.
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The research findings can be found in the Journal of Endocrinological Investigation.
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