Diabetes and Weight Lifting

Here's some welcome news for type 2 diabetics that may sound too good to be true.

You can get your blood sugar under better control without adding a new medication…and you don’t have to lose weight: you only have to lift them.

A new study in the journal Diabetes Care of more than 100 diabetic patients 60 and older found those who did intense weight training 3 times a week had better blood sugars and better insulin response than those who did so-called sham exercise with similar equipment at low intensity. These weight lifting benefits were equivalent to adding another diabetes medication.

There is a caveat. The weight training has to be high intensity and you have to keep challenging the muscles by progressively adding more weight.

Weight lifting alone is not enough. The American Diabetes Association says the combination of both aerobic and resistance training is best.

When you’re dealing with diabetes, exercise can be medicine.