When we have a lot of belly fat, we are at greater risk of heart disease because of the inflammatory molecules that this fat produces. But a new study by scientists at the University of Illinois suggests that even moderate amounts of exercise can reduce the inflammation.

Since people with diabetes are at an especially high risk of heart disease, this is an encouraging finding for us.

The study examined the effects of diet and exercise on the inflammation of visceral fat tissue — belly fat — in mice. Maybe people will react differently, but only the sedentary mice got the inflammation that usually results from having big bellies.

“The surprise was that the combination of diet and exercise didn’t yield dramatically different and better results than diet or exercise alone,” says Victoria Vieira, a University of Illinois Ph.D. candidate and the study’s lead author. [Read more →]

Walking is the exercise of choice for most people, especially when we would rather be outdoors than in a gym. Walking is one of the best ways to prevent heart disease, the biggest problem that those of us who have diabetes face.

If all we want to do is strengthen our lower body, we need only comfortable clothes and supportive footwear. But walking does little or nothing to strengthen the muscles of our upper body.

Unless we walk with poles, like Ken Mundt does.

“The advantage is that I get a whole upper body workout,” he told me when I called him at his home in Seattle. “My chest muscles get a good workout, because I don’t slam my poles. I place them, and then I push.” [Read more →]

Based on what I’ve read recently, some of which I have reported here, I’ve grown more and more wary of the wisdom of taking supplements. Few of the them seem to help.

And now comes a new study indicating that the two most common supplements can actually work against us. Those supplements are vitamins C and E.

It seems that we have a choice of exercising or taking large doses of those supplements. We know that exercise has lots of good effects like increasing our sensitivity to insulin, which is of great importance to all of us with diabetes.
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Just a few minutes of exercise can have a big effect on the action of insulin that keeps our glucose levels in balance. The trick is to go all out.

While we have known for years that aerobic exercise like walking improves the health of our hearts and helps prevent or control diabetes, it can take a lot of time. Until now, however, we didn’t know if quick bursts of exercise would help.

Recent research now shows that it does. Scientists in Scotland reported their findings in BioMed Central Endocrine Disorders. Just 15 minutes of high-intensity interval training in a two-week period had a “remarkable” effect on the insulin action of the sedentary young men in the study, the researchers wrote.
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Like most people, I used my pedometer passively to note how many steps I took each day. Now I use it as a prod for better performance and to help control my diabetes.

We can use pedometers to motivate us to get enough of the moderate-intensity physical activity we need. The government’s official 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, which I covered here last year, calls for us to get a minimum of 150 minutes of this moderate-intensity exercise each week. That can work out to 30 minutes on five days of the week. We can also get it in shorter bouts, typically of 10 minutes each time.

But many of us can’t figure out what “moderate-intensity” means. Until I read a brand new research report, I certainly didn’t.
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A study in the January issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is the first one ever to examine how walking by itself can help us keep the weight off for the long term. Since almost all of us with type 2 diabetes struggle with our weight, this is a key part of controlling it.

Walking may or may not be more beneficial for us that other forms of physical activity. That’s not what the study was about. Rather, for most people walking is the least expensive and most readily available way to get the exercise that we all need.

The study monitored almost 5,000 men and women for 15 years. Walking works.
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Now that I have practiced yoga for all of an hour and one-half, I can confidently recommend it to almost everyone who has diabetes.

On Friday I took a yoga class for the first time in my life. While my yoga experience and expertise is as minimal as possible, my first impression of yoga is just about as positive as possible.

And our first impression of someone or something new is not only crucial in social situations but can be more accurate than a painstaking analysis whenever we face other complex situations. Making a decision on the basis of a first impression is anything but a “snap judgment.”
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The Novo Nordisk travelling exhibit of the faces of people who have changed for the better after a diabetes diagnosis is now online. It’s been a long time coming.

For several months the exhibit has been on tour in major cities around the country. Now it’s coming to Chicago’s Navy Pier from September 26-29 and Atlanta’s Woodruff Park on October 17-20. Novo Nordisk is planning to continue promoting the Meet the Face of Change exhibit in 2009, but hasn’t announced the details yet.
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The problem with the review of a new study showing that we have to exercise an hour a day to keep the weight off is that almost no one has time for it.

“People, let’s be realistic,” writes one reader of the review in the Los Angeles Times. “One person in one hundred may be able to exercise one hour each day. What about the rest of us?”

So true. Technology has improved the lives of almost all Americans and other fortunate people in the developed world so much that the only muscles we need any more are those in our eyes, our ears, and our fingers. And our mouth muscles, of course.
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