medwireNews: Researchers believe that guidelines for Type 2 diabetes should specify that exercise should be taken after eating, especially if the meal contains a lot of carbohydrate.
Their randomised crossover trial showed that the 41 patients’ average 3-hour postprandial glucose levels over 7 days were 12% lower if they walked for 10 minutes after each meal, starting within 5 minutes after they finished eating, rather than for half an hour at an unspecified time of day.
“The prescribed level of activity was modest, so the results may be regarded applicable to a wide group of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who are sufficiently motivated to undertake physical activity”, say Jim Mann (University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand) and study co-authors in Diabetologia.
Average postprandial glucose levels across all meals were 453 versus 508 mmol/L per min, but the team says this difference was largely down to the “particularly striking” 22% difference after the evening meal (424 vs 537 mmol/L per min), “when carbohydrate consumption was high and participants tended to be more sedentary.”
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