CSU researcher says exercise deters diabetes

Moderate activity shown to restore metabolic balance

Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 17, 2007 at midnight

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FORT COLLINS - There's new hope for those prone to diabetes, but it involves getting off the couch, getting exercise and breathing better.

A Colorado State University researcher has found that it's not just congenital bad genes that dictate whether someone will get Type II diabetes but the way genes change through a lifetime of use and misuse.

Regular moderate exercise can help restore the aerobic-anaerobic balance in muscles and, therefore, in the genes that carry the codes for those muscles, according to preliminary research by Andre Ptitsyn, researcher in CSU's veterinary and biological sciences centers.

If follow-up studies confirm the essential role of aerobic balance in diabetes, it will mean that weight control alone won't be enough to lower the risk of Type II diabetes.

But it also will mean that almost anyone can greatly lower the risk of Type II diabetes with proper exercise.

Ptitsyn was at a diabetes conference in Keystone in 2003 when he heard two speakers talk about a fascinating study.

By the next lunch break, he was downloading their data, finding an area the other two scientists hadn't been focusing on when they studied the differences in makeup in older men who did and didn't have diabetes.

"It looks like the major driving force is somewhat linked with the lack of oxygen, or hypoxia," Ptitsyn said.

In fact, the same genes that differ wildly in people prone or not prone to altitude sickness show fluctuation in those with or without diabetes.

When he charted the 43 men in their 60s, based on their oxygen levels, the result was "a comet's tail," with several very healthy people forming the comet's core, and several others trailing to form the tail. Those with increasingly worse oxygen capacity were farthest down the road toward contracting full-fledged diabetes.

"What we see gives us hope that we can capture the stage of progression" from a blip at the metabolic level to full-scale diabetes, he said.

If so, each person can be monitored for the rate of progression from ideal health, letting each know "how fast you are traveling down the road," he said.

Of course, the hope is that earlier warning signals will get people to modify their lifestyles.

There is also the chance that medicine can be designed to target the unique genes of the individual person, something that is just a dream now.

"Physical exercise is the natural way through the loophole, by keeping the energy balance between aerobic and anaerobic metabolism," Ptitsyn said.

Sprinters can run the 100-yard dash barely taking a breath, so the main muscle work is anaerobic, creating energy from blood sugar alone.

Marathoners or people who take nice long hikes rely on aerobic energy. For that, oxygen, breathed into the lungs and sent through the capillaries to the muscles, combines with blood sugar to supply energy.

It takes more effort and it takes a nicely working oxygen-to-blood transfer, but it allows a person to keep going for hours without a shutdown of energy.

If people prone to diabetes can build some of the oxygen efficiency of the marathoner, they might radically lower their risks.

Ptitsyn's research appears in next month's BMC Genomics Journal. He hopes to attract grant money to do larger studies of people to see if oxygen efficiency is indeed a key predictor of diabetes.

Diabetes in America

20.8 million Americans have diabetes

54 million Americans have pre-diabetes

225,000 The number of Americans who die each year with diabetes a contributing factor

PREVENTION

Nutrition:

• Eat lots of fruits, vegetables and whole-grain foods

• Eat a lot of fish

• Eat lean meats

• Choose skim milk, diet soft drinks

Exercise:

• Start a walking program