It’s a known fact: Being older and heavier could put you at risk for gestational diabetes during pregnancy, a condition that currently affects around 10 percent of the U.S. population. Worse yet, a gestational diabetes diagnosis could lead to type 2 diabetes down the road.
But now researchers say there may be one way to avoid it: By exercising.
“This is kind of a hopeful message because they may think they are at a high risk of type 2 diabetes, but this shows they shouldn’t give up,” says Dr. Cuilin Zhang, a researcher from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Rockville, Maryland. “Exercise more. It can help. Pregnancy is like a stress test. Pregnancy can unveil the high susceptibility of type 2 diabetes later in their lives.”
The Research
Recruiting a total of 4,554 adult women with a history of gestational diabetes, Zhang set out to research a new hypothesis: Could exercise prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes for these women later in life?
To test this out, she tracked their lifestyle behaviors and then compared it to the rate of type 2 diabetes in the group–approximately 635 women developed type 2 diabetes by the end of this study.
While Zhang found that watching TV and staying sedentary had a profound impact on their diabetes risk, she also found something more important–that the amount of time they exercised played a more important role.
In this case, those who exercised the least were 19 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes after a gestational diabetes diagnosis.
“It’s a challenging time for women during the post partum period when they have a baby,” says Monique Hedderson, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California, who co-authored a commentary about the study earlier this month. “It’s important for young women to be physically active before, during and after pregnancy.”
In total, Zhang found that those who exercised the most–about 150 minutes per week–cut their risk of type 2 diabetes by more than 50 percent. Those who neglected exercise, however, developed it more often, regardless of other lifestyle factors, such as eating a healthy diet.
It just goes to show you how important exercise truly is.
“Increasing physical activity may lower the risk of progression from GDM [gestational diabetes] to T2DM [type 2 diabetes mellitus],” says Zhang. “These findings suggest a hopeful message to women with a history of GDM, although they are at exceptionally high risk for T2DM, promoting an active lifestyle may lower the risk.”
What You Should Do
Worried about developing type 2 diabetes? Keep your risk low by engaging in regular physical activity daily. Just 21 minutes of exercise everyday can help reduce your risk by over 50 percent.
Readers: What else do you do to minimize your risk of diabetes?
Sources:
Pregnant Women Can Avoid Type 2 Diabetes By Exercising – Reuters.com
Study: Women With Gestational Diabetes Can Avoid Later Type 2 Diabetes Diagnosis By Exercising More – JAMANetwork.com
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