Sport and diabetes

 

There is no better and more committed way than Hans Lauber, who himself suffered from “adult-onset diabetes”, to describe how exercise can defeat diabetes, at least in the early stages!

A book worth reading for anyone with a family history of type II, i.e. “old-age” diabetes; a call to get plenty of exercise!
Reducing fatty tissue while also building up muscle is the key to defeating type II diabetes mellitus in the early stages. At least in the beginning, there is no insulin deficiency; the insulin is just significantly less effective in those affected. More muscle and less fatty tissue give the insulin back its effectiveness. The blood sugar levels return to normal.
Hans Lauber himself aptly describes this form of diabetes as “lifestyle diabetes”. Far too little exercise is the cause of reduced calorie consumption with all its consequences.

If there is evidence of diabetes, the patient should always receive intensive education, if possible in the form of diabetes training. You can also measure the quality of the training by the attention paid to exercise and thus weight reduction. Unfortunately, however, it has to be said that the frustration of those who impart knowledge is often very great when it comes to the topic of exercise and thus weight reduction, with the consequence that this topic is usually given far too little attention! And unfortunately, you cannot make it clear to far too many patients that anti-diabetic drugs can in no way replace the necessary change in lifestyle; not even if you tell them about the consequences in the form of the late damage caused by diabetes mellitus.

If drug therapy for diabetes is already necessary, the procedure for starting exercise and sport should be discussed during training and in individual discussions. Even during the first training session, insulin-dependent diabetes requires an additional intake of carbohydrates or a reduction in the amount of insulin to be injected. The extent of this adjustment varies greatly from patient to patient. Only appropriate blood glucose measurements and discussion of the values with the doctor or diabetes consultant over the course of the training will guarantee the correct measure. As the training progresses, the improved insulin sensitivity due to the reduced body weight and the hopefully increasing muscle mass comes into play.

 

The importance of strength muscles for improving a diabetic metabolic condition has been reported in many publications. The adjacent figure was taken from a paper by Cauza et al. In this work, the authors showed that the long-term sugar, the HbA1 value, fell significantly more as a result of 4 months of strength training than as a result of endurance training of the same duration!

Although the positive effect of strength training on insulin resistance has been clearly confirmed in all review articles in recent years, all experts believe that there is still a great need for research to better understand the causal relationships of this effect.

The fact that the topic is exciting can also be seen from the fact that the pharmaceutical industry is also very concerned about our muscle mass! Testosterone administration in male diabetics with relatively low testosterone levels in the blood is currently undergoing clinical trials and drugs to stimulate muscle growth, which – once again – should save us the hassle of training, are in development.

It will be cleverer, healthier and cheaper if we teach our teachers and children that it is not only mental performance that counts, but also physical performance. And for all those who still don’t believe that a healthy mind lives in a healthy body, I would like to recommend the following click (physical performance and intelligence)