Three Minutes of Exercise A Week Could Prevent Diabetes!

Just one minute of exercise a day could prevent diabetes, researchers claimed yesterday.

Performing short cycle sprints three times a week could be enough to prevent and possibly treat type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes occurs when blood sugar levels build up to dangerously high levels due to reduced insulin function, often caused by a sedentary lifestyle.

Dr Niels Vollaard, who is leading the study at the University of Bath, says:

 “Our muscles have sugar stores, called glycogen, for use during exercise. To restock these after exercise, the muscle needs to take up sugar from the blood. In inactive people there is less need for the muscles to do this, which can lead to poor sensitivity to insulin, high blood sugar levels, and eventually type 2 diabetes. We already knew that very intense sprint training can improve insulin sensitivity but we wanted to see if the exercise sessions could be made easier and shorter.”

Dr Vollaard, who is also part of the team said: 

“We know of no quicker and easier way of getting the muscles to use glycogen than with the short sprints we used in our study. These sprints break down as much glycogen in 20 seconds as moderate endurance exercise would in an hour. This is completely new. No one has ever found a programme this easy and short to provide health benefits. At the moment it has only been done in lab conditions but it would be easy to create a bike that does this in a gym setting.

It could even be done in the workplace.”

So if you spend all your day at the office seated behind a PC with practically no activity, you should consider getting a stationary bike where you could break down glycogen from your muscles and mop up excess blood sugar!