Diabetes and Exercise make an excellent partner and it is only recently that scientific proof backs up this theory.  Many people have been told about the many benefits exercise program for diabetes but have not taken any notice up until now.

 Diabetes and Exercise – Benefits for you

 ·  Reduces the need for insulin and oral medications

·  Prevents weight gain and promotes weight loss

·  Strengthens the heart, muscles and bones

·  Improves strength, flexibility and endurance

·  Improves brain function and mood

·  Lowers stress

·  Lowers blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol

·  Improves circulation

Recently reported on the Daily Press.com by a reporter named Prue Salasky wrote an article that heading certainly caught my eye “Doctor beats diabetes with exercise.”   For anyone with diabetes or lives with diabetes headlines like this really are of interest to you.

Although the headline was a little misleading as the doctor she writes about Sarah Younger doesn’t actually beat diabetes she lessens the dose of her insulin through exercise.

As disappointed as I was with the headline the article it self was newsworthy, Prue goes on to write “Sarah Younger is on a mission. The 44-year-old physician, mother of four, and fitness aficionado, wants everyone with diabetes to know that exercise can help control the disease.

She speaks from experience. Three years ago, after weeks of unusual fatigue and other telltale symptoms — increased thirst and more frequent urination — the petite Newport News resident went to her office and gave herself a blood sugar test.”

People really do sit up and take notice of what a doctor has to say and how the doctor realized vague symptoms like thirst frequent urination and fatigue before testing her self with a simple blood test she found she had type 1 diabetes.  After the initial shock of find out she had this disease Sarah was at this point exercising 5 times per week.

Prue goes on to write about Sarah “While people had cautioned her that she needed to get her diet under control and warned her about the dangers of hiking alone if her blood sugar were to go down, Insulin dependence encouraged pushing limits and being adventurous.

“It inspires people. It educates them about what they can do and tells them to explore what’s out there. It tells people that as diabetics you can do anything you want as long as you have good blood sugar control,” she says.

Younger has also found that her vigorous exercise regimen allows her to take much lower doses of insulin.

And I think this the main crux of the article to show how diabetes should not hinder you and the things that you like to do on a daily basis.  Younger shows that through measuring blood glucose levels both prior to and during exercise the plus is certainly you need to take less insulin.

How Diabetes and Exercise will help you.

In fact Younger goes on to say  “The more you test, the more you know,” she says, conceding that at first her sugar would get low from working out when she didn’t know what she was doing.

Between 80 and 126 mg/dL is an acceptable count — at her lowest she registered 33 and, when first diagnosed, her highest hit 380. “You can feel the real lows and real highs, but not the in between,” she says. When sugar levels get low, “you’re shaky, your heart’s racing, you feel a little confused.”

Insulindependence helped her learn how to monitor her workouts, their duration and intensity, and avoid the lows. She experimented a lot and initially carried her glucometer with her on runs in order to measure her blood sugar.”

“You have to be educating yourself. In the end your workouts are better because you’re not crashing in the middle,” she says. She also recommends experimenting with exercising at different times of day.

Now, for a 5-mile run she likes to start with a blood glucose count of 140 to 150 so as to end with it at 100 to 110. For a 10-mile run, half-way through she’ll “pop in a ‘goo’ or a ‘chew block,’ 15 to 25 grams of carbs,” to stop her sugar level from dropping.

The purpose of this information is not to have you run out and do a marathon it is to encourage you to do some sort of exercise for yourself to ensure that you get the same benefit as Sarah and that is to be able to lessen your dose of insulin.

Diabetes and exercise does go hand in hand it is not hype it does actually work, if you can’t trust a doctor then who can you trust.