Exercise helps control diabetes Exercise helps control diabetes
Exercise helps control diabetes 
jayson
17 y
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Everything that I've learned about my Type II says to exercise. I'm not perfect, but I do generally walk an hour a day. Light weight lifting is good too. Exercise lowers blood glucose levels.
 MSNBC.com |
DENVER - Bad news when it comes to diabetics and exercise: Most people with Type 2 diabetes or at risk for it apparently ignore their doctors’ advice to be active.
Fewer than 40 percent get exercise, a new study found, and the more in danger the patients are, the less likely they are to be active.
That’s despite an earlier study that found nearly three-quarters of diabetics said their doctors had advised them to exercise. The patients who got the strongest warnings to get moving were the least likely to listen, according to research being released Friday.
“People should exercise more, that story is out,” said Dr. Elaine Morrato, who led both studies. “What we’re saying is, ‘Here’s a high-risk population that can benefit from exercise, and they’re even less likely to exercise.”’
Without exercise, Type 2 diabetics face complications ranging from nerve damage to high blood pressure.
Morrato, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver with a doctorate in public health and epidemiology, said researchers surveyed more than 22,000 patients for the new survey. Results of the study appear in the February edition of the American Diabetes Association’s journal Diabetes Care.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates more than 20 million Americans have diabetes, about 90 percent of them Type 2, which is linked with obesity.
Don't 'blame the victims'
Dr. Larry Deeb, president of medicine and science at the American
Diabetes Association, said by the time patients have Type 2 diabetes or are at
risk of getting it, the deck is stacked against them. They may already have
problems with mobility as a result of obesity or foot and circulatory disorders
that make exercise difficult.
“We have to be careful not to blame the victims,” he said. “There’s a difference between being unable and being unwilling.”
Even for the most disabled, there’s hope, said author and fitness expert Charlotte Hayes, but health professionals must do more.
Hayes, who wrote “The I Hate to Exercise Book For People With Diabetes,” said telling patients to exercise is different from telling them how.
Every step of exercise is important, she said. For those who can walk, a few steps a day helps. For those who can’t, there are alternatives.
“We take a small-steps approach,” she said.
Finding the time
The American Diabetes Association recommends people get at least 30 minutes of
aerobic exercise, such as brisk walking, five times a week. But the association
says for those who can’t, there are benefits from even five minutes a day,
along with everyday activities such as gardening or walking to work.
Morrato said she doesn’t know the answer, only that the results of her study are disappointing.
“It is difficult to be optimistic about addressing the twin epidemics of obesity and diabetes without success in increasing physical activity in the population,” her study concludes. “The results of this study provide very pessimistic data.”
Deeb, who specializes in pediatrics, said the next generation is off to a better start. Children, he said, are taught nutrition and the benefits of physical activity. Now, families, local governments and school boards need to take action, while doctors need to follow up and find out if at-risk patients know where to get help.
“When you ask a family what they’re doing, the answer is all about time. They know what’s good for their families, but both parents are working, and sometimes the only time they have is to pick up fast food,” he said. “They have to understand, your health depends on it.
“We will not give up,” he said. “We can’t give up.”
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16810983/
I think that diabetes is the result of many different factors from genetics, to the way we live. And a lack of physical activity is certainly one of the factors. Added to that, in just the past 40 years, the life expectancy has increased significantly allowing many people to "age into" diabetes. My father was diagnosed diabetic 50 years ago, before home blood testing. He was not overweight, walked everywhere (he didn't have an automobile) and was in 'good' shape - but he ate pie for breakfast, cookies for lunch and cake for dinner, prepared for all of us by out good cook mother. We all developed poor eating habits. He was able to cut down the sweets and lived to 81, but would have been much better with home testing. Yet, exercise can really make a difference in not just controlling diabetes, but I find that it helps me to control my appetite, and I also get a sense of well being from it.
If you've ever been in the workplace in large groups where you get to know a lot of people from different backgrounds and different lifestyles, you will find most of them disregard real healthy living. The workplaces that I've been in all had schedules, deadlines, and a big push - and that's in the white collar area. Martini's for lunch were common, and I participated in that too, but I also jogged a lot. Most everyone is in control of their own physical destiny. Most know it. Many don't care. I do.
There are 200-300,000 knee replacement surgeries in the USA each year. They need a factory. I had one of mine done six months ago and it totally changed the way I walk and will take more than a year to recover, but I am getting out now for an hour at a time, five and six days a week. I need some upper body work too, and am struggling to get that cranked in. I was bone on bone before surgery and did everything in my power to keep from having it, but it just became too painful. Staph and other hospital infections are deadly, and they have been in hospitals for decades.
"Hmm. I wonder if the same people who are most
blatantly disregarding the doctor's recommendation to exercise are ones who also
disregarded "health" advice in general and that's what led to them
being diabetics (or at least such severe diabetics) in the first place... ?
OBVIOUSLY NOT TRUE FOR ALL
My grandfather was a diabetic and if the doctor said do it, he did it. He got
off insulin and controlled it through a strict diet. He also exercised every
day. He didn't cheat at ALL. He soaked his feet in a vinegar bath every night,
wore special socks, etc... and he lived 20+ years that way, and when he died it
was because of a hospital infection when he had knee replacement surgery, not
anything directly related to being diabetic.
I know someone my age who is a diabetic and he doesn't exercise at all! And he
eats stuff like full sugar desserts all the time..."
"I do not swallow the genetics card any more. Have you read the Lipton paper in the .pdf directory? We all have the ability to change based upon belief and habit, genetics\predisposition or not."
I'll go part way with you. As I said in an earlier post, everyone is responsible for their own condition and health. There are predispositions to all sorts of things, from alcoholism to obesity, to heart disease. And yes, we can each either delay or circumvent our predispositions. That's easier said than done. Yet they are finding, and have found in relation to diabetes, that lifestyle habits play a big role too.
I'll go you one better. You and I and everyone else chose our parents,
our siblings, and our genes. If we chose genes with predispositions, we
did it for a learning experience.
