Here's why diabetics not great at dealing with daily dozens

Not great at dealing with daily dozen? Blame your diabetes as a recent study has revealed that type 2 diabetes patients find exercise more difficult than others.

Women with Type 2 diabetes experience a barrier to physical activity that threatens to make them more sedentary and cause their health to worsen, according to the new study by Amy Huebschmann of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

Huebschmann said that researchers know regular physical activity prevents premature disability and mortality from Type 2 diabetes mellitus and is a critical part of disease management, but many people with the disease are generally sedentary for reasons that are not fully established.

But researchers may now be getting closer to an answer as they found significantly higher lactate levels during low to moderate intensity exercise in people with Type 2 diabetes than their counterparts without the disease. They also tended to score higher on the Rating of Perceived Exertion that measures how difficult people rate the exercise.

Exercise effort is an important barrier to physical activity because it is modifiable and the perception of more intense effort during exercise has been associated with lower levels of usual physical activity, the study noted.

According to Huebschmann, these findings suggest that common household activities like climbing stairs or carrying groceries would feel more difficult to people with Type 2 diabetes than to their counterparts without diabetes.

An important take-home point for clinicians is to encourage patients to be physically active at a pace that is personally comfortable -- this should lead to good adherence and health benefits, Huebschmann said. "If possible, all adults should gradually increase their activity to target at least 30 minutes of activity on most days, as this leads to many major health benefits. It's fine if people reach these goals in short intervals, such as 10-minute brisk walks."

The study is published in the journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care.