Researchers have found that middle-aged men who get more than 3 hours of exercise each week are less likely to develop metabolic syndrome, an illness largely characterized by insulin resistance that often leads to development of so-called "adult-onset" type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Insulin is an essential hormone that clears the blood of glucose (a form of sugar) after a meal and deposits it into cells to use for energy. High blood sugar can increase the risk of complications from diabetes such as heart disease, kidney failure and blindness.
At the University of Kuopio in Finland, researchers studied the associations of exercise and fitness with development of diseases such as diabetes and atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). To investigate, researchers followed a group of 612 healthy men between the ages of 42 and 60 over a 4-year period. All of the men provided information about various lifestyle habits, including how often they exercised on a weekly basis.
At the end of the study, 107 men were diagnosed with metabolic syndrome. According to the report, these men had at least three of the following: abdominal obesity (a thick waist), elevated blood triglycerides (bad), low levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar. On average, these men exercised about 60 minutes or less per week. Men who exercised more than 3 hours per week, on the other hand, were much less likely to develop metabolic syndrome. This group of men decreased their risk of developing the metabolic syndrome by about 50% compared with the men who exercised no more than 60 minutes per week.
These findings suggest that intervention at an early phase in even relatively low-risk men may dramatically reduce the risk for development or progression of metabolic disturbances that eventually lead to the chronic and progressive diseases such as diabetes and atherosclerosis.
Diabetes Care, August 2002, Vol. 25 (9)