Diabetes and Exercise - The Indispensable Facts That You Must Know

Exercise has always been touted as one way people can improve their fitness level and ensure general health. This becomes truer if you are a diabetic. Why? Simply put, because study after study has shown that exercising regularly actually helps you to lower your blood glucose level. And this is evident immediately in the aftermath of any exercise or physical activity done.
 

Apart from the general health benefits, physical activity also has long-term benefits of; stronger muscles, prevention of cardiovascular disease, weight loss, etc. For a diabetic, it also carries specific advantages. These are the prevention of diabetes and assisting in the management of diabetes.

How does physical activity do this? Diabetic patients either suffer from the effects of either not producing enough insulin or of their body being resistant to insulin. Since insulin is needed to help get glucose which the body needs for energy into the body's cells, the unavailability of insulin or the bodies resistance to it means that dangerous levels of insulin accumulates in the blood stream consequently leading to complications which can result in organ damage, limb loss and even death. 

One way to combat this is through diet. In order words making sure that the level of glucose in the blood stays within a safe target range.

Another way to ensure this, which objective is the same, is through physical activity or exercise. The reason why this is so, is because when you exercise or partake in some other form of physical activity like sports, another mechanism is also used by the body's muscles to take in glucose. This method does not depend on insulin in enabling muscles to take up glucose.

That is to say that this form of glucose uptake-energy production which occurs in the muscles during physical activity or anaerobic respiration, does not depend on insulin to get glucose into the cells. Rather, during exercise, contractions increase blood glucose uptake from circulating blood glucose, with the rate of uptake increasing with the intensity of the exercise.

So there is insulin dependent glucose uptake during rest and exercise and insulin independent glucose uptake which happens during exercise. It is this latter which proves so beneficial to diabetics and why it is recommended that diabetics should take up a physical exercise program.

As such if you are diabetic and you haven't started already, really there is no time to waste. Why don't you speak to your doctor or diabetes health team today to enable you be adequately guided on the fitness regimen best suited to you.