DIABETES SPECIAL SECTION
Being fit and active and building lean muscle is one way to swerve or even reverse diabetes type 2. We speak to Kate Rowe-Ham to find out why.
AROUND 12.3M PEOPLE ARE AT risk of type 2 diabetes in the UK, and most of them are above the age of 40. The disease is caused when insulin – the hormone that regulates the movement of sugar into cells and controls blood sugar levels – is not used properly by the body. Damage can be caused to vision, your heart, nerves, kidneys and even your feet.
According to Diabetes UK, carrying extra weight around your midriff contributes to the risk, while weight loss promotes remission.
Of course, there’s no denying the benefits of cardiovascular exercise on weight management, but the ticket to staving off type 2 diabetes, and even reversing its impact if you already have it, is weightlifting.
Strength training five times a week can, according to research, reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by a third*.
‘Weight-bearing exercise helps improve and control blood sugar levels. It’s an anaerobic exercise, which means your muscles are primarily powered by glucose to undertake short bursts of activity, unlike running, which uses up fat and oxygen,’ explains Kate Rowe-Ham, a level-3 personal trainer, women’s health expert and founder of Owning Your Menopause, an app helping midlife women to thrive.
‘Staying active most days of the week will help you improve insulin sensitivity, stay healthy and reduce long-term health risks,’ she adds.
Your chances of developing chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer is greater when your metabolism – the process by which the body converts food and drink into energy – slows down. But strength training, insists Kate, is one of the best ways to improve metabolic health because, unlike cardio exercise, which only burns fat during the workout, lifting weights builds lean muscle mass, which uses more calories at rest than other tissues, including fat. Plenty of studies reference the so-called “after burn” effect, which lasts for up to 38 hours after weight training **. ‘If we’ve got more muscle, we are likely to burn more calories and if we burn more calories, we’re unlikely to struggle with visceral fat. This is a type of fat surrounding the internal organs, which exacerbates insulin resistance so the body can’t properly use it to control glucose, increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes,’ says Kate.
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