New research suggests that picking up the weights may be more effective than hitting the treadmill when it comes to controlling blood sugar and preventing diabetes. A team from Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute has discovered that resistance training—like weightlifting or bodyweight exercises—may do a better job at improving how the body manages sugar and fat.
To understand how different types of exercise affect metabolism, researchers fed mice a high-fat diet to mimic human obesity and insulin resistance, two major risk factors for type 2 diabetes. They split the mice into two workout groups: endurance trainers that ran on a wheel, and strength trainers that had to lift a weighted door to get their food, which mimics squatting under increasing loads.
After several weeks, both exercise groups showed big health benefits compared to sedentary mice—including less body fat, better blood sugar control and more efficient insulin use—but the