The simple act of walking down stairs could help prevent diabetes, according to new research from Edith Cowan University, which cites something known as eccentric exercise
Researchers from ECU’s School of Medical and Health Sciences recruited 30 obese elderly women and put them on an exercise program, with half walking upstairs and the others walking downstairs.
Lead researcher Professor Ken Nosaka says that at the end of the 12-week program, the women who walked down stairs showed improvements on several physiological measures.
“They had significantly lower levels of resting glucose, insulin and haemoglobin 1AC, improved oral glucose tolerance test, and decreased triglycerides and cholesterols together with an increase of good cholesterol (HDL cholesterol) in their blood,” he notes.
“All of these changes will have lowered their risk of developing diabetes.”
“While both groups recorded an improvement it was significantly greater in the down stairs group,”.
Nosaka says the greater improvement in the down stairs group is almost certainly because walking down stairs is what is called eccentric exercise.
“Despite how it sounds, eccentric exercise does not involve going for a run in a silly costume,” he assures.
“Eccentric exercise is where load is placed on the muscle while it is lengthening, rather than shortening.
“For example, walking down stairs is eccentric exercise because your front thigh muscles are lengthening when they are placed under load, as opposed to walking up stairs in which the muscles are shortening, performing mainly concentric contractions.”
As well as protecting against metabolic syndrome and diabetes, the researchers also found that the down stairs group’s physical function such as walking ability, balance, bone mineral density and resting heart rate and blood pressure all improved significantly more than the up stairs group.
“This is yet more evidence that not all exercise is created equal in terms of its health benefits,” Nosaka adds.
There are lots of ways to incorporate eccentric exercise into your life to enjoy the health benefits, he believes.
“If you work in a tall building, try taking the lift up to work, but then walk down the stairs when you go home.
“Or, if you are using weights, concentrate on the lowering the weights slowly, because the lowering action causes your muscles to perform eccentric exercise.
“Even sitting down in your chair slowly makes your leg muscles to contract eccentrically so by sitting down slowly you can get a bit of eccentric exercise.”
The research is particularly pertinent to New Zealand, where diabetes is the largest and fastest growing health issue and is closely linked with heart disease (also known as cardiovascular disease or CVD).
Together they are responsible for the deaths of more New Zealanders each year than cigarettes.
There are over 240,000 people in New Zealand who have been diagnosed with diabetes (mostly type 2), and it is thought there are another 100,000 people who have it but don’t know.
- diabetes is most common among Māori and Pacific Islanders, who three times as likely to get it as other New Zealanders
- south Asian people are also more likely to develop diabetes
- the number of people with both types of diabetes is rising – especially obesity-related type 2 diabetes.
A More Heart and Diabetes Checks Health Target has been established to help save these lives – aiming to have regular heart and diabetes checks for at least 90 percent of those at risk of developing these conditions.
