Short walks after meals significantly reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes

Ten-minute walk after eating leads to lower blood sugar levels
Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disease that results in high blood sugar levels. Type 2 diabetes can lead to serious sequelae. Researchers have now found that a ten-minute walk after eating results in lower blood glucose levels, massively reducing the risk of Type 2 diabetes.

Many people around the world are looking for ways and means of better controlling their type 2 diabetes disorder. Researchers at the University of Otago, New Zealand, have now found in an investigation that if patients take a 10-minute walk after eating, it will cause the blood sugar level to drop significantly. The physicians published the results of their study in the journal "Diabetologia".

How can we protect ourselves from high blood sugar and Type 2 diabetes? Physicians have now found that short walks directly after eating significantly lower the blood sugar level. (Photo: Robert Kneschke / fotolia.com)

People with type 2 diabetes should become physically active after eating
A walk after dinner could help control diabetes. Just a ten-minute walk directly after eating leads to lower blood sugar levels, say the specialists. Patients taking a 30-minute walk after eating three times a day had a positive effect on blood sugar levels. The findings are designed to encourage people with type 2 diabetes to perform regular post-meal physical activity, the physicians explain.

Three walks after meals give good results
In the past, physicians advised patients with type 2 diabetes to exercise regularly. The physicians explain in their current study, however, that a single walk is not optimal. Three walks immediately after meals (within five minutes) lowered the blood sugar level after walking by 22 percent, say the scientists. This value is still 12 percent lower than for people who only had one walk a day.

Three short walks are more effective than a long walk
The scientists from the University of Otago examined 41 volunteers for their study. These were then found that shorter walks directly after meals lower the blood sugar level. The doctors also suspect that most people are more likely to make multiple consistent short walks than a single 30-minute walk.

Especially after dinner, most people barely move
The improvement in overall postprandial glycaemia was largely determined by lower post-dinner blood glucose levels, explain the physicians. At this time, the consumption of carbohydrates is high and the participants tended to be more sedentary.

Muscle contraction just after eating helps with the transport of glucose
Experts at the University of Otago did not specifically investigate why exercising after eating was more effective than a single walk at some point of the day. Previous research suggested that muscle contractions help to transport the newly digested glucose into the muscle cells shortly after eating. This process happens without the need for insulin, explain the scientists.

Another study finds benefits from five longer walks a week
Another study by the University of Cambridge and University College London has shown that people should take a 30-minute walk five times a week. As a result, sufferers have a 26 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. This study was also published in the journal "Diabetologia", say the experts. (As)