Aerobic Exercise Helps Find Genetic Regions Linked To Prediabetes

People's bodies respond to exercise in different ways, and their genetic makeup is partly responsible. For one, people differ in how greatly exercise alters their blood sugar equilibrium, an effect demonstrated in a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and other institutions in the HERITAGE Family Study. The divergence in exercise response allowed the researchers to identify regions on chromosomes 6, 7, and 19 that are linked to prediabetes. Their report appears in the June issue of Diabetologia. Prediabetes is characterized by the body's elevated resistance to insulin, the hormone that regulates blood glucose levels and energy storage. The condition generally advances to type 2 diabetes as the pancreas works to secrete insulin to compensate for increased insulin resistance in the body's liver, muscle and fat cells. When the pancreas can no longer make enough insulin to keep blood sugar levels down in the normal range, clinically overt type 2 diabetes results.

Back to news