For people with type 2 diabetes, both aerobic exercise training (like walking or jogging) and resistance exercise training (strength training) lead to improvements in blood sugar control, and a combination of aerobic and resistance training results in larger improvements.

In this study, the authors analyzed data from a six-month randomized controlled exercise trial in participants with type 2 diabetes to explore the relationships between the dose of exercise (the proportion of the total prescribed exercise sessions that were completed) and the change in blood sugar control. All participants in the exercise groups were asked to do three exercise sessions per week.

Overall, the more exercise completed, the better the improvement in blood sugar control. For aerobic training and combined aerobic and resistance training, but not for resistance training alone, those who completed more exercise sessions had greater improvements in blood sugar control.

The relationships between dose of exercise and change in blood sugar control were significant for younger people (age 40-55 years), men and those with worse blood sugar control before participating in the study. In contrast, for older participants (age 55-70 years), women and people with better blood sugar control at the start of the study, there were no significant relationship between percent of exercise sessions completed and improvements in blood sugar control.