Type 2 diabetes can cause a decline in heart function. A new one, however, reveals that this can be restored with intense physical training, without changes in diet or medication.
Also called non-insulin-dependent diabetes, type 2 diabetes is characterized by an abnormally high and chronic level of sugar in the blood (hyperglycemia). The cause: a lack of insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, which naturally regulates the level of glucose present in the blood. In France, 90% of diabetics are affected by this insidious disease, which can lead to loss of sight and an increased risk of high cholesterol, heart disease and stroke. Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in patients with type 2 diabetes.
However, it is possible to prevent this decline in heart function in people with diabetes – due to too high blood sugar levels – by practicing regular physical activity. This is the conclusion reached by researchers from the University of Otago, New Zealand.
In the magazine Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise from the American College of Sports Medicine, they explain that three months of high-intensity interval training, i.e. alternating high-intensity sprints and moderate-intensity exercises, improved heart function in adults with type 2 diabetes without modification of diet or drug therapy.
A marked improvement in heart function
As part of the study, researchers followed 11 middle-aged adults with type 2 diabetes for 3 months. All participated in 25-minute exercise sessions that included 10 minutes of very high-intensity activity .
The team took measurements of participants’ heart function at the start of the study and at the end of the 3-month training period. They then compared these measurements to a control group of five participants who had not undergone intensive physical training. The results revealed that the participants who took part in the experiment had demonstrated an improvement in their heart function at the end of these 3 months.
More importantly, the study demonstrated that this activity was a safe and effective exercise regimen for middle-aged adults with type 2 diabetes: 80% of participants approved of it. “Our research has shown that exercising at a sufficiently high intensity can be an inexpensive and practical way to reverse or reduce the loss of heart function caused by type 2 diabetes,” says co-author Genevieve Wilson. of the study.
Physical exercise in prevention
According to the researchers, these results are all the more encouraging as they prove that intensive physical exercise is within the reach of diabetics.
This leads to “two important clinical implications”, analyzes Dr Chris Baldi, cardiologist and associate professor in the Department of Medicine at the Dunedin School of Medicine. “The first is that adults with type 2 diabetes should engage in high-intensity interval training and are able to increase their aerobic capacity and left ventricular response to exercise comparable to those of adults. adults without diabetes. Second, high-intensity exercise is able to reverse some of the changes in heart function that appear to precede diabetic heart disease.”
According to the researcher, the incidence of type 2 diabetes continues to rise and the prolonged management of the disease increasingly cripples health systems around the world. Increasing aerobic capacity through physical exercise is therefore the best prevention against heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
.