Physical activity, such as walking to work, can lower the risk of developing type-2 diabetes. Regular exercise, such as brisk walking, is one way to cut the risk of type 2 diabetes, a disease closely associated with obesity.
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that individuals should engage in 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, such as brisk walking, on most days of the week for health promotion and disease prevention, as previous studies have shown that vigorous physical activity reduces the development of type-2 diabetes.
But it has been unclear whether light exercise, like a leisurely paced walk to work, has the same benefit, Health News reported. To find the relationship between walking to work and the development of type-2 diabetes, researchers from the Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan used data from an ongoing health study of nearly 8600 middle-aged Japanese men working in the same company. These men had normal blood sugar levels at the study's outset and were followed up for four years.
In general, it was found that the more walking the men did to get to work, the lower their risk was of developing type-2 diabetes over the next four years. Men who said their walk took at least 21 minutes were one-quarter less likely to develop diabetes than their co-workers who walked for 10 minutes or less. All the men had sedentary jobs and came from similar educational and socio-economic backgrounds.
The findings indicate that regular walking may directly lower diabetes risk by improving the body's sensitivity to insulin. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar. Type-2 diabetes develops when body cells become less responsive to the actions of insulin. And even walking to work, if long enough, can help ward off diabetes.