Diabetes Management Through Resistance Training

Exercise in general is known to be good for diabetes management through prevention and treatment mechanisms. One of the reasons for this is the effect exercise has on shifting what are called ‘glucose transporters’ within the muscle cell to take up blood sugars for metabolism in the cell.

It works a bit like this

Imagine the muscle cell as a nightclub, and sugar (glucose) molecules in the bloodstream being a bunch of red-blooded men wanting to get into the night club to spend an entertaining night with a bunch of red-blooded women. The women are seated inside and need to come to the door of the nightclub to show the men in and get things going. However, the big obstacle is the big boofy doorman, who is this case is represented by the hormone insulin, who comes from a particular part of town – called the pancreas.

When insulin is present, the door opens, the glucose molecules (randy men) enter the doorway but don’t know where to go until the glucose transporters (randy women) come and greet them and take them in. Then there’s action and the nightclub rocks – the sugar is burned up as energy in the muscle, which is effective diabetes management.

Now, researchers have found a new breed of women to do the job. Instead of the usual young lithe escorts (called GLUT4 in physiological terms), an exotic new breed (called HSGL3 – or high sensitive glucose 3 transporters) have been found to react more to weight lifting and make the club move more for people whose nightclubs are usually not happening (diabetics).

These new findings suggest that resistance training by lifting weights, even more than aerobic exercise can make the club rock best for those with lazy doormen (insulin resistance).