Fitness is part of our lives where indulging ourselves more in physical activity and cardio exercises help us gradually manage several health conditions. Doctors always recommend using heart disease to practice brisk walking and other physical fitness to reduce their prevalence.
Not only does a health condition makes it mandatory for a person to be more conscious about their physical fitness, but the pandemic has pushed us to be more cautious about our health. While sitting behind closed doors has put our stress and anxiety, just slowing ourselves down physically and mentally.
From several exercises, doctors always emphasize aerobic exercise, improving health, and reducing many acute diseases such as diabetes. But according to recent observations, diabetes or people with higher blood sugar levels find it difficult to perform an aerobic exercise or improve their capacity to perform it more rigorously.
Based on this observation, researchers from Joslin Diabetes Center, which is an affiliate of the Harvard Medical School, in Boston came together to observe why and how hyperglycemia in people prevents them from performing an increased level of aerobic exercise to gain the healthful benefits from the same?
The researchers decided to experiment and study the mouse model to understand the mechanism behind low aerobic exercise capacity in people with chronic hyperglycemia or when they are in the prediabetes range.
The Mouse Model research for Hyperglycemia
Professor Sara Lessard, the senior investigating researcher of this study, mentioned that conducting this study induced these mice models with high blood sugar and saw whether it would impair their aerobic fitness ability? The main agenda was to prove this hypothesis right and find a solution to help several hyperglycemia people.
The researchers divided these mice models into two groups and induced them with high blood sugar levels. The first group of mice was given a set with high saturated fat and sugar, which led to their weight gain and increased blood sugar levels, whereas, in the other mice model, no such diet was given to them; instead, their diet had low sugar and fat. Hence, they never gained weight.
But the second group ended up with hyperglycemia because there were modifications made in their system, which led to their body producing low insulin levels. Both these mice groups were put up to running about 500 kilometers, or about 311 miles, for their study duration.
The results showed that the control group of mice with lower blood sugar levels had a better aerobic capacity. The other two groups had high blood sugar levels and failed to improve their aerobic exercising capacity. Hence, the researchers’ final understanding brought out a theory that the blood sugar levels affect the potential of performing aerobic exercise and not the low insulin levels or obesity in these mice.
Why does the blood sugar levels block the efficiency of Aerobic Exercise?
The lead researcher of the study Dr, Sarah Lessard, mentioned that when performing aerobic exercise, there are changes in muscle tissue, and the muscle fibers become more efficient in drawing or using up all the oxygen possible. What happens further is that to allow the oxygen that these muscle fibers are taking up, we develop more blood vessels in our system.
While we develop more blood levels, our aerobic fitness improves along with it, but this wasn’t so in these hyperglycemia mice. The muscles did not show any adaptation to use up more oxygen, which did not lead to blood vessels’ development.
The researchers said that due to an increased level of blood sugar does not allow the muscle to adapt itself; instead, high blood sugar alters the proteins in the space between muscle cells where the blood vessels need to develop but which now could not happen. It practically blocks the development of these blood vessels. Hence, there is no improvement in aerobic fitness.
Moreover, a particular pathway is known as c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), the malfunctioning of which would mean that the muscles would react differently since it specifically programs and instruct the muscle to respond to an exercise in a certain way.
In hyperglycemia patients, the pathway interprets the wrong function, which shows that these patients have more muscle fibers and fewer blood vessels. When clinical trials were again performed, this time on humans, it became clear that the theory testing on mice models was correct; some humans showed acute results due to their hyperglycemia condition.
The highest JNK pathway activation seemed one of the reasons for no improved aerobic fitness in these people. It caused a blockage for the aerobic fitness adaptation, and it was observable in people with low glucose tolerance or, in other words, impaired glucose intolerance.
The Conclusion to this Study
Dr. Lessard mentions that diet and fitness always go hand in hand in our daily lifestyle, affecting a lot of our blood sugar levels. Hence, it is mandatory for people with high blood sugar or diabetes to consult a doctor and consume prescribed medications to lower their blood sugar levels.
Moreover, the idea is to design a diet plan that explicitly involves foods that lower blood sugar levels. In the end, nutrition and fitness work hand in hand to improve your blood sugar levels. But the lead researcher did mention that it does not matter whether a person has hyperglycemia or not; aerobic fitness training would still be recommended for diabetic patients.
The diabetic effects do inhibit aerobic training fitness in people. However, it is still useful for performing and bettering aerobic fitness in an individual with a diet lowering blood sugar levels.
