Tobias Duennwald, Hannes Gatterer, Maria Wille, Elena Pocecco, Marc Philippe, Philipp Kruesmann, Alexander Dzien, Luciano Bernardi and Martin Burtscher
Objective:Type 2 diabetes is associated with impaired respiratory and cardiovascular control. Physical exercise training is a well-established tool in the treatment of diabetes. However, effects of short-term exercise training on respiratory control in diabetes are unknown. Thus, we examined the effects of 4 weeks of exercise training (high intensity interval- and continuous moderate exercise training; HIT and CMT) on cardiorespiratory control and aerobic capacity in type 2 diabetes subjects.
Methods: Fifteen non-insulin dependent subjects with type 2 diabetes (4 female, 11 male, age 59.6 ± 1.5 years, BMI 29.5 ± 1.0 kg/m2, HbA1C 7.0 ± 0.3%) were randomized to either supervised HIT (N=8) or CMT (N= 7), both equalized for the total amount of work, for 3 times a week over 4 weeks. At baseline and follow up, measurements of hypercapnic and hypoxic ventilatory response (HCVR; HVR), Baroreflex Sensitivity (BRS) and VO2 peak were performed.
Results: Four weeks of supervised exercise training increased resting HCVR (from 0.55 ± 0.1 to 0.73 ± 0.1 L/ min/mmHgCO2-et), whereas HVR and BRS remained unchanged. VO2 peak (27.5 ± 1.4 versus 30.1 ± 1.6 ml/kg/min) and VO2 at anaerobic threshold (19.7 ± 1.0 versus 21.9 ± 1.3 ml/kg/min) increased in the whole group. No significant changes between HIT and CMT were observed, except a slight increase in haemoglobin concentration after HIT.
Conclusion: Our findings indicate that short-term exercise training increases HCVR associated with an improvement in aerobic capacity in patients with type 2 diabetes. HIT might demonstrate a less time demanding alternative to CMT. These findings are of clinical relevance, as exercise capacity predicts cardiovascular and overall mortality.