Response of Growth Hormones and Cortisol to One Session of Moderate-Intensity Endurance Exercise in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: A Quasi-experimental Study

Therapeutic interventions for diabetes are one of the main components of treatment and having proper physical activity in these patients is important from different physical, psychological, and social aspects. The benefits of exercise in these people include improved cardiovascular health and increased self-confidence, contributing to maintaining proper weight, controlling blood pressure, lowering blood lipids, and lowering insulin levels. The objective of this study was to assess the baseline levels of growth hormones and cortisol and the response of these 2 hormones to 1 session of moderate-intensity exercise in type 2 diabetic patients and to compare them with healthy individuals.  

This was a quasi-experimental and applied study, with a pretest and posttest design and with 1 control group. Participants included 12 healthy people without diabetes and 12 patients with type 2 diabetes aged over 30 years who were referred to the Diabetes Clinic of Tohid hospital, Kurdistan, Iran. After describing the objectives and hypothesis of the study and the implementation method, informed consent was obtained from all participants. SPSS Version 22 software was used for data analysis and coding. The Shapiro-Wilk normality test was used to assess data distribution. A paired t test, an independent t test, the Wilcoxon test, and the Mann-Whitney U test were used to compare outcomes between the 2 groups before and after the intervention.  

A total of 24 individuals were included: 5 men and 7 women were included in the diabetic group and 7 men and 5 women were included in the healthy group. The mean duration of diabetes in the diabetic group was 7.82 years. The results showed that there was no reason for rejecting a relationship between 1 session of moderate-intensity exercise and increased growth hormone secretion in healthy individuals (p=0.010), but the relationship between this factor and increased growth hormone secretion in the diabetic participants could be strongly rejected (p=0.900). Also, 1 session of the moderate-intensity exercise was not significantly correlated with cortisol secretion in healthy and diabetic participants (p>0.05).  

This study revealed that baseline growth hormone levels in healthy participants were higher than those of diabetic participants and 1 session of moderate-intensity exercise significantly increased the growth hormone secretion but did not significantly increase the cortisol secretion.