20 minutes activity can lower blood glucose levels in diabetes
Blood glucose levels in diabetes patients can drop by two points following just 20 minutes of physical activity, a new research study has found.
Diabetes clinicians and researchers at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and the University of Exeter have been looking into data surrounding physical activity in people with the Type 1 variant of the condition.
Sufferers need to keep their blood glucose levels under a 10, but it can creep up to 12 and above. Normally patients would treat this by using insulin to bring it down, but the new evidence has meant that 20 minutes of physical activity, even a walk, will bring the number down by two.
This means that patients can manage the amount of insulin they’re taking and prevent a potential ‘crash’ if they take too much.
John Pemberton, Diabetes Dietitian at our Children’s Hospital said: “The glucose-lowering effects of physical activity have been recognised for decades and we started using this with our patients in Birmingham since 2019.
“What this research has allowed us to do is to scale up the study and be able to match occasions when the same person used insulin and when they used physical activity in order to demonstrate the effect.
“This means that patients have a free and alternative to insulin, which will also benefit other areas of their health too."
The study used the Type 1 Diabetes Exercise Initiatives for both adult and children and analysed nearly 2,000 bouts of physical activity lasting 10–30 minutes. Results confirmed this lowered glucose into the target range. This effect was consistent across age, sex, regimen and activity type, establishing real-world evidence for physical activity in correcting hyperglycaemia.
Each event was matched to a control period from the same individual, balanced on the four strongest predictors of glucose change: starting glucose, glucose rate of change, insulin on board, and preceding glucose variability. The team compared around 1,500 events and established physical activity as the key determinant.