Diabetes risk drops with weight training

Weight training alone or with aerobic exercise may lower diabetes risk in men, Harvard University research has shown, while a German study found that physical activity keeps those with the disease alive longer.

Lifting weights 30 minutes a day, five times a week, may reduce a man's chance of developing Type 2 diabetes by as much as 34 percent, and when combined with aerobic exercise like brisk walking or running, cuts the risk as much as 59 percent, according to the Harvard research posted online Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The German study showed that people with diabetes who were moderately active had a 38 percent lower risk of dying compared with those who didn't exercise.

In the study from the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Southern Denmark, the researchers looked at 32,002 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study from 1990 to 2008. During that time 2,278 men developed diabetes.

Men who did weight training one to 59 minutes a week reduced their diabetes risk by 12 percent; those who engaged in weight training 60 to 149 minutes a week reduced their risk by 25 percent; and those who weight trained for at least 150 minutes a week lowered it by 34 percent compared with those who did no weight training, the authors said.

The second study, led by researchers from the German Institute of Human Nutrition, looked prospectively at 5,859 patients with diabetes and found that those who engaged in moderate amounts of exercise were at a lower risk of death compared with those who were inactive.