Over 340 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 were overweight or obese in 2016, according to World Health Organization. These numbers are increasing year over year. So in the case of today’s article, obesity is a main factor of insulin resistance that plays a major role in the development of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D). T2D induces high blood pressure that can lead probably to mortality.
We know that insulin sensitivity plays a major role in preventing T2D. Some people may say that drugs can make the work and prevent our bodies from T2D. But these people do not know that drugs have SIDE EFFECTS. Why not take a way more healthy solution ? TRAINING and FITNESS ACTIVITY. The no-drug therapy is consecutively PHYSICAL ACTIVITY. Consequently, muscular hypertrophy and muscular adaptation upsurge insulin sensitivity and help increasing glucose uptake (when the body makes insulin under situations of insulin resistance, the cells are tough to the insulin and are incapable to use it as efficiently, leading to elevated blood sugar. Beta cells in the pancreas then upsurge their making of insulin, contributing to a high blood insulin level). So when we train and work out, we increase our muscle mass directly. This increase gives to our body-mechanism the power to prevent diseases like T2D.
If we dig deeper into researches we can see a more interesting way to prevent benefit obese people. Recent evidence showed that Hypoxic Training (means O2 restriction during physical activity), is a therapeutic strategy to treat metabolism. In our body, hypoxia leads to a decrease of the glucose level.
According to Hypoxic Training Improves Normoxic Glucose Tolerance in Adolescents with Obesity ESTELLE DE GROOTE, FLORIAN A. BRITTO, LOÏC BULLOCK, MARIE FRANÇOIS, CARINE DE BUCK, HENRI NIELENS, and LOUISE DELDICQUE, morphological parameters improved in considered-obese people. Adolescents were tested and followed a hypoxic cycling activity: SpO2 – test (oxygen saturation in blood) showed hypoxemia. This type of training led to a major decrease in: body mass, BMI, umbilical perimeter, and fat mass. It also led to an increase in lean mass.
At the end, hypoxic training has many benefits:
- It improves insulin response. Hypoxic training, decreases plasma insulin and improves glycolytic metabolism.
- Allows a higher work capacity at 160 BPM
- It enhances energy production
- It favors the utilization of glucose (better glucose tolerance)
- It decreases triglycerides
In contrary, there is a point to note : for hypertensive adolescents, normoxic training is more appropriate.
Finally, these results suggest that training in hypoxia in adolescents with obesity should be further evaluated as a possible strategy against insulin resistance and T2D development in such patients.