Improvement of Glucose Homeostasis in Response to Short-Term Aerobic Training in Middle-Aged Men with Abdominal Obesity

Overweight and obesity is associated with insulin resistance and is the most important risk factor of type 2 diabetes (T2DM). In present study, we assessed glycemic profile and insulin resistance response to a short term aerobic training in middle -aged men with abdominal obesity.

The subjects included 28 abdominally obese (waist circumference ≥102cm) middle -aged men (39 ± 5 year) that were divided into exercise (n=14) or control (n=14) groups by randomly. Exercise subject were completed a short -term aerobic training at 55 -70 % of maximal heart rate (6 weeks, 3 times / weekly) and control subjects remained no training. Pre -training and post -training of anthropometrical markers, fasting glucose, hemoglobin (HbA1C), insulin and insulin resistance were measured of 2 groups and compared by independent – paired t test (SPSS, Version 22.0).

Aerobic exercise resulted in a significant decrease in glucose level (114 ± 13 versus 101 ± 11 mg/dL, P: 0.009) and HbA1C (6.14 ± 1.11 versus 4.91 ± 1.23, P: 0.021) in exercise group. But no significant changes were observed in insulin (8.31 ± 4.12 versus 8.29 ± 3.21, P: 0.119) and insulin resistance (2.34 ± 0.51 versus 2.07 ± 0.59, P: 0.073) in exercise groups.

Based on our finding, aerobic training independent of insulin function is associated with improved glucose in middle -aged obese men and this improvement can be attributed to other changes caused by exercise that requires further study in this area.