Aerobic exercise best for blood sugar control in type 1 diabetes patients: Study

Ireland: Aerobic exercise may be the best approach of all exercise modalities for reducing delayed hypoglycemia risk in people with type 1 diabetes (T1D), finds a recent review in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism & Cardiovascular Diseases.

According to the authors, the result were quite unexpected as the studies having a shorter follow-up of up to 3 to 6 hours identified aerobic exercise as the worst approach in terms of blood sugar control in the immediate post-exercise. However, in the long term (24 hours post-exercise) aerobic exercise was found to be the best approach.

Exercise plays a crucial role in the prevention of complications and comorbidities in T1D. Despite this, T1D patients are often insufficiently physically active, mainly due to the fear of hypoglycaemia. Research using continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices has shown that exercise affects glycaemic control in T1DM for over 24 h. Giacomo Valli, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova, Italy, and colleagues, therefore, aimed to investigate the delayed effects of different exercise modalities on glycaemic control in adults with T1DM.