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 Researchers asked 4,681 people without diabetes, whose average age
was 43, to do leg and bench presses to measure their muscle
strength, and to perform treadmill tests to assess their
cardiorespiratory fitness. During an average follow-up period of
more than eight years, 229 participants, or almost 5 percent,
developed diabetes.
Compared to people who scored lowest on muscle strength tests at the
start of the study period, those with moderate muscle strength were
32 percent less likely to develop diabetes. Higher levels of muscle
strength, however, didn't appear to impact future diabetes risk.
"You don't need to be the Hulk to help reduce your risk of
diabetes," said study co-author Dr. Angelique Brellenthin of Iowa
State University in Ames.
"Performing even a small amount of resistance training, which is a
main contributor to muscular strength, may provide big benefits,"
Brellenthin said by email. "Bodyweight squats, lunges, push-ups and
planks are great for beginners."
The study focused on type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the
disease, which is linked to obesity and aging and happens when the
body can't properly use or make enough of the hormone insulin to
convert blood sugar into energy.
Moderate muscle strength was associated with a lower risk of
diabetes even after researchers accounted for a person's aerobic
fitness levels as well as risk factors that can contribute to
diabetes risk, such as family history, smoking, drinking, obesity
and high blood pressure, researchers report in Mayo Clinic
Proceedings.
Before adjusting for these other factors, people with high muscle
strength did have a somewhat lower diabetes risk compared to the
weakest participants. But after accounting for these factors, that
advantage disappeared.
"Muscles are highly metabolically active and high users of glucose,"
or blood sugar, said Dr. Tahseen Chowdhury of Royal London Hospital
in the UK.
"Greater muscle mass and volume will tend to use more glucose, but
also tend to be more sensitive to the effects of insulin which
increase muscle uptake of glucose," Chowdhury, who wasn't involved
in the study, said by email.
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The study wasn't a controlled experiment designed to prove whether
or how muscle strength might directly impact the development of
diabetes. It also wasn't designed to determine which types of
workout might be best for diabetes prevention.
"The best way to prevent diabetes is to avoid a high-calorie diet
and to have regular aerobic physical activity at moderate to high
intensity for at least 30 minutes for 5 to 6 days a week," said Dr.
Stefano Volpato of the University of Ferrara in Italy.
"Resistance training exercises are useful to increase muscle mass,
but results of this study are too preliminary to recommend this type
of intervention to prevent diabetes," Volpato, who wasn't involved
in the study, said by email.
Because the risk of diabetes increases with age, it's possible that
results would look different for adults over 65, said Dr. Alan
Sinclair, director of the Foundation for Diabetes Research in Older
People at Diabetes Frail Ltd and a visiting chair in diabetes care
at Kings College London.
"The study would have been more interesting and relevant if the mean
age of subjects was over 65 years where lowered muscle strength
means much more than diabetes risk – it also means something about
walking ability, risk of falls, risk of frailty, and loss of
independence," Sinclair, who wasn't involved in the study, said by
email.
Even so, "the study emphasizes the importance that maintaining a
moderate degree of muscle strength can provide some protective value
against diabetes developing," Sinclair said.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2OOdWME Mayo Clinic Proceedings, online March
11, 2019.
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