Resistance training is associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes

1. Resistance training among US adult health care professionals was associated with lower type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk, especially when performed consistently over midlife and combined with adequate aerobic activity and limited sedentary television viewing.

Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good)

Although performing resistance training is recommended in current US guidelines, more research is needed on optimal long-term patterns of resistance training, including volume, consistency, and integration with other lifestyle behaviors. This study thus investigated whether long-term resistance training is associated with reduced T2D risk, and how combinations with aerobic activity and sedentary behavior are additionally associated with T2D risk. This study included adult health care professionals from three US prospective cohort studies who had undergone at least 3 assessments of resistance training between 40 and 60 years of age. The primary outcome was incident T2D. Among the 143,715 participants analyzed (mean [SD] age, 56.0 [10.5] years; 78.3% women), 10,038 incident T2D cases were reported during a mean (SD) follow-up of 19.2 (5.0) years. Participants engaging in 2 or more hours per week of resistance training had a 27% lower T2D risk (HR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.66-0.81) compared with those with no resistance training. In trajectory analyses, a lower T2D risk was found for participants with consistently high levels of resistance training (≥0.5 h/week across midlife) (HR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.45-0.74), a high to low pattern (HR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.67-0.99), and low to high pattern (HR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.66-0.94), compared to those with consistently low levels of resistance training. The lowest T2D risk was found for participants who met recommendations for both aerobic activity (≥15 total metabolic equivalent h/week) and resistance training (≥1 h/week) and limited television viewing (<2 h/d) (HR, 0.38; 95% CI, 0.34-0.42) compared with those meeting none of the recommendations. Overall, this study found that among US adult health care professionals, resistance training was associated with lower T2D risk, especially when performed consistently over midlife alongside adequate aerobic activity and limited sedentary television viewing. These findings highlight the importance of including resistance training in the prevention of diabetes.

Click here to read this study in JAMA Network Open

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