Women who develop diabetes
during pregnancy can reduce their need for insulin treatment
by participating in a resistance training program, investigators
in Canada report.
According to their
study results, overweight women seem to benefit more than their
lean counterparts from such an exercise program.
The research team,
based at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, notes that resistance
exercise may be preferable to aerobic exercise, which is also
recognized as a means of treating so-called gestational diabetes.
Resistance training improves strength and posture, which could
alleviate some of the discomfort of advanced pregnancy, and
may be more easily performed than aerobic exercise.
In the study, led
by Gabrielle Brankston, 32 women were randomly assigned to a
standard diabetic diet alone or to a diabetic diet plus exercise.
The participants were at approximately 29 weeks into their pregnancies.
The exercise regimen
involved eight resistance exercises in a circuit-type training
set-up, three times per week. The amount of insulin needed to
control diabetes was significantly lower in the diet-plus-exercise
group, the investigators report in the American Journal of Obstetrics
and Gynecology.
Among women who
were overweight before becoming pregnant, only 3 of 10 in the
exercise group required insulin therapy, versus 8 of 10 in the
diet-alone group.
Despite this benefit,
pregnancy outcomes -- gestational age at delivery, rate of caesarean
deliveries and birth weight -- were similar in the two groups.
The authors suggest
that the results could be improved further. They point out that
those in the exercise group participated in an average of two
sessions per week rather than the recommended three weekly sessions.
Beginning an exercise program earlier in pregnancy and improved
compliance with the exercise regimen may eliminate the need
for insulin altogether, Brankston's team suggests.
They recommend an
investigation with more women and a direct comparison between
aerobic and resistance training.
SOURCE: American
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, January 2004.
Reference
Source 89
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