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Exercise May Help Reduce Your Risk of Diabetes

If you've got a family history of diabetes, you might want to try "walking" away from it.

Chalk up yet another health benefit from exercise. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center recently completed a study that shows regular exercise reduces glucose levels in the blood. Exercise physiologist Cris Slentz:

"Higher levels of glucose mean you're either on your way to diabetes or you have diabetes."

Slentz says study participants walked the equivalent of 20 miles per week. One effect was that they each lost an average of seven pounds, but Slentz says that's not even the best news:

"Probably the most exciting thing is that their glucose levels were going backwards."

Slentz says he and many other exercise physiologists have long suspected that diabetes is largely what he calls an "exercise deficiency" disease.

"When we exercise we don't normally gain weight every year and it's the weight gain, especially in the stomach area, that's tied to diabetes and heart disease."

Slentz says if you're developing a middle-age spread, dieting can help you lose weight and exercise will help keep it off. Exercise will also help control your glucose levels, and that means you'll be less likely to develop diabetes.

I'm Cabell Smith for MedMinute.

contact sources : Cris Slentz , (919) 660-6743 cris.slentz@duke.edu