Effectiveness of resistance exercise compared to aerobic exercise without insulin therapy in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a meta-analysis.
Cybelle Nery, Silvia Regina Arruda De Moraes, Karyne Albino Novaes and 3 others
PMID 28728958WHAT IT FOUND
In adults with type 2 diabetes not using insulin, resistance exercise and aerobic exercise did not differ for blood sugar control, body mass index or lipids; only cardiorespiratory fitness favored resistance, from very low-quality evidence.
Key findings
01Resistance exercise did not differ from aerobic exercise for HbA1c: mean difference 0.10%, 95% CI -0.15 to 0.34, in 276 adults.
02Resistance exercise showed an increase of 2.86 ml/kg/min in VO2max compared with aerobic exercise across 247 adults, but the evidence was very low quality.
03BMI, HDL, LDL, triglycerides and total cholesterol did not differ between resistance and aerobic exercise groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
All outcomes were rated very low quality by GRADE because of risk of bias, inconsistency, indirectness and imprecision. Randomization and allocation concealment were often not described, and blinding of outcome assessors was done in only four studies. No study used intention-to-treat analysis, and no study performed a sample size calculation. Exercise protocols differed between studies, and the small number of studies prevented sensitivity analysis or meta-regression. One included study had a four-week pre-training aerobic phase that may have selected participants with better performance. One study was not included in the meta-analysis because it reported mean change and confidence interval data. Some outcome analyses included fewer participants than the 336 total evaluated; for example, total cholesterol included 243 adults and BMI included 293 adults.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that resistance exercise is better than aerobic exercise for diabetes control. The only finding favoring resistance was VO2max, and the evidence was very low; HbA1c, BMI and lipid outcomes did not differ.