Weightlifting Can Help Men Avoid Diabetes

Regular weightlifting may help men avoid Type 2 diabetes altogether, a new study has found.

And another, smaller study concluded that people of either gender who were already diabetic but who exercised regularly could sharply reduce their risk of diabetes-related death.

The two analyses were published in the “Archives of Internal Medicine.”

The larger study, which covered 32,000 men, also found that if people followed a weight training regimen, there was no need for aerobic exercise.  Lead author Anders Grontved, who conducted the study at Harvard University School of Public Health (HSPH), said in a statement, “Until now, previous studies have reported that aerobic exercise is of major importance for type 2 diabetes prevention…But many people have difficulty engaging in or adhering to aerobic exercise. These new results suggest that weight training, to a large extent, can serve as an alternative to aerobic exercise.”

Even a modest amount of weightlifting can have big benefits. The Harvard researchers analyzed men who did between 1 minute and 59 minutes of weight training per week, as well as those who did workouts of between 60 and 149 minutes, and 150 minutes and above. The subjects’ risk of getting diabetes was reduced, respectively, by  12 percent, 25 percent and 34 percent.