When to walk for better blood sugar control

Controlling blood sugar is good for so many things, including mood, concentration, fighting inflammation or autoimmunity, maintaining blood vessel health, and so much more.  If you are working to control high blood sugar, then you probably already know that walking—or any kind of physical activity—can help. But according to a 2016 study, it turns out that strategic timing of that walk can help even more.  The name of the article gives you the gist:

Advice to walk after meals is more effective for lowering postprandial glycaemia in type 2 diabetes mellitus than advice that does not specify timing: a randomised crossover study.

Researchers asked 41 participants with type 2 diabetes to walk 30 minutes per day. Half were instructed to do one daily 30-minute walk, while the other half were told to do a 10-minute walk after each main meal. They did this for two weeks, and guess what:

Walking 10 minutes after each main meal is significantly better than walking 30 minutes all at once.

The researchers suggest that post-dinner walks may be especially beneficial, because that’s when blood sugar tends to rise the most.

So give it a try and let us know how it goes! If you’d like to read the full article, it’s here.  Happy walking!

Source:

Reynolds, A.N., Mann, J.I., Williams, S. et al. Advice to walk after meals is more effective for lowering postprandial glycaemia in type 2 diabetes mellitus than advice that does not specify timing: a randomised crossover study. Diabetologia 59, 2572–2578 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00125-016-4085-2