Avoid type II Diabetes:

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In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today's post: Thursday, 7-27-2006

Avoid type II Diabetes:

Treating your muscles well can get the job done by itself in many cases. And it always helps if you do it right.

Recently, Medscape had a report about developing drugs to build muscle mass & keep your muscles healthy as a way to lose excess fat & stay healthy.

Here’s a quote from that article.:

“Skeletal muscle has been a potential target for antiobesity therapies because it constitutes about 40% of body mass and is an important site for uptake and oxidation of both glucose and fatty acids.

In obesity, fatty acid metabolism in skeletal muscle is compromised, culminating in the accumulation of intramyocellular lipid, which is associated with insulin resistance and is a marker for the development of type 2 diabetes.”

Simply put or translated into layperson’s terms:

Healthy muscles help you process sugars & other carbs & fats of all kinds.

The more muscle mass you have & the healthier your muscles are, the better that works.

And, getting too fat tends to screw that up at the cellular level within your muscles.

Who knows? Maybe the researchers at the drug companies will come up with something that works, is safe, keeps working even if you take it a long time, & at a price you can afford.

But, WHY WAIT ???

Strength or weight training already does that job & does it well.

Even a single set of a list of ten or so basic weight training exercises done in 20 minutes twice a week with a day of rest in between can sharply increase your muscle mass if you make a moderate effort or greater each time.

And, doing that & some aerobic exercise each week will make your muscles much healthier even if you are still fat.

(Of course if you do regular strength training & cardio each week & keep doing it & start eating only health-enhancing foods & eliminate transfats & high fructose corn syrup & cut back on animal based saturated fat foods, being fat can & will be temporary.)

Studies do show that fat people who exercise are much healthier than skinny people who don’t.

And strength training does help normalize your body’s blood sugars.

In fact, one man found that when he did strength training three days a week with some intensity for about an hour, his blood glucose measures went from a level indicating type II diabetes to normal. And, they remained there as long as he continued his strength training.

It’s my understanding that people with advanced or severe type II diabetes should get their blood glucose levels under control with monitoring, eating better, & drugs -- before adding strength training or intense or prolonged aerobic or cardio exercise.

Since such blood sugar levels are damaging to the body & at such severe levels your body stops responding normally to exercise & since taking appropriate drugs & going from a horrible eating style to a healthy one work so fast, that seems reasonable to me.

But if you don’t yet have that level of problem blood sugars yet or you’ve gotten them under control with drugs, etc, one of the best ways to keep your insulin resistance & blood sugars in the healthy range is exercise and particularly strength training.

If you want to avoid type II diabetes & stay healthy in many other ways, be sure to do strength training every week.

And, if your life is hectic, or during the weeks it’s very hectic, remember, even 20 minutes twice a week of strength training makes a huge difference to your health.