Doctors advise that people do some aerobic exercise every week. They say it is required to maintain a healthy body. Meanwhile, scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center found that sugar decreases cardio workout capacity. Some benefits of cardio exercises are affected by increased blood glucose, known as hyperglycemia.
Joslin assistant investigator in the section of Clinical, Behavioral, and Outcomes Research, Sarah Lessard, Ph.D., shared what they saw. She said that they found that the benefits were lost in mouse and human models with chronic hyperglycemia. Results also showed that the trait does not depend on obesity and blood insulin levels.
Studies prove that high blood sugar reduces people's capacity to do aerobic workouts. Lessard, senior author on a paper in Nature Metabolism, shared their ideas. She said that they want to see the effects of induced high blood sugar in mice. The team wanted to know if it could impair their ability to improve aerobic workout. They also want to know the reason causing low fitness levels in people with hyperglycemia.
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Varied diets, same weight gain
The team used two mouse models to reflect the two major causes of high sugar levels in humans. They fed the first group with a Western diet with high sugar and saturated fat. Apart from having hyperglycemia, the mice gained weight. With the second group, the team changed the diet to decrease insulin production. They found that the latter also had the same weight gain as the former.
Lower aerobic exercise
They let both groups run on wheels to boost aerobic fitness. Throughout the study, the mice ran 500 kilometers (310 miles). Lessard, an assistant professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, saw how the two teams differed. She said that the mice with high blood sugar did not improve their activity unlike those with low sugar levels. Her team found that their muscles did not adapt to the challenge as a normal muscle does.
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Lessard said that a workout becomes easier when people do it often. She said that muscle tissues remodel itself. Muscle fibers strengthen over time with aerobic exercises. People grow new blood vessels, so more oxygen goes to muscles to increase aerobic fitness levels.
The team believes that too much sugar could partly prevent muscles from remodeling. Sugar changes the proteins at the site where blood vessels are formed.
Lessard's lab work before showed a pathway that tells muscle cells to adapt to workouts. The team found that the pathway signals get crossed no matter what training the mice did. Their fibers became bigger and had fewer blood vessels. She had young adult volunteers ingest glucose. Then found that they developed impaired glucose tolerance.
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Decreased fat and improved metabolism
Lessard also said that people should know that people still achieved other health benefits despite no increased activity. The workout could still help decrease fat mass and improve metabolism with or without hyperglycemia.
The team's study suggests that people with the condition should change into a diet low in sugar. It also suggests keeping taking drugs to control their sugar levels. Finally, Lessard suggests that we should consider controlling diet and exercise to maximize their benefits.
