Benefit Of Exercise On Diabetes Risk May Be Undone By Vitamin Supplements.

[Darryl Shaw]

Benefit Of Exercise On Diabetes Risk May Be Undone By Vitamin Supplements, Study

A team of scientists from Germany and the US found that vitamin C and E supplements may undo the benefits of exercise on diabetes risk and glucose metabolism. It would seem that exercise-induced oxidative stress helps the body defend itself against stress and metabolize carbodydrates more effectively, said the researchers.

The study was the work of scientists from Germany's Leipzig and Jena Universities and Harvard Medical School in Boston, US, and was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS on 11 May.

Lead investigator, Dr Michael Ristow, a professor in the Department for Human Nutrition at the Institute for Nutrition in the University of Jena, said:

"Exercise causes repeated boosts of free radicals, which - according to our results - induce a health-promoting adaptive response in humans."

"Subsequently, our body activates molecular defense systems against stress, and metabolizes carbohydrates more efficiently, both of which prevents diabetes, and possibly other diseases," he added.

"Blocking these boosts of free radicals by antioxidants accordingly blocks the health promoting effects of exercise," explained Ristow, adding that short term doses of free radicals may behave like a vaccine, helping the body to boost defences against chronic stressors and building a long term adaptive response.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/149672.php

[Garrett Smith]

That's quite a theoretical extension jumping from healthy men to what "might happen" in diabetics.

That being said, the antioxidant theories are taking beatings in the literature left and right these days.

[Mike ODonnell]

Hormesis.......a little stress makes the body stronger.