New Research Shows an Increase in Health Benefits of Exercise by Working Out Before Breakfast
Exercising before eating
breakfast improves how the body responds to insulin and lowers people’s risk of
type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
October 19, 2029 –- According to a new
study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism
health scientists at the universities of Bath and Birmingham found that by
changing the timing of when you eat and exercise, people can better control
their blood sugar levels.
The six-week study, which involved
thirty men classified as obese or overweight and compared results from two
intervention groups (who ate breakfast before / after exercise) and a control
group (who made no lifestyle changes), found that people who performed exercise
before breakfast burned double the amount of fat than the group who exercised
after breakfast.
They found that increased fat use is
mainly due to lower insulin levels during exercise when people have fasted
overnight, which means that they can use more of the fat from their fat tissue
and the fat within their muscles as a fuel. To test proof-of-principle the
initial study involved only men, but future studies will look to translate
these findings for different groups including women.
Whilst this did not lead to any
differences for weight loss over six weeks, it did have ‘profound and positive’
effects on their health because their bodies were better able to respond to
insulin, keeping blood sugar levels under control and potentially lowering the
risk of diabetes and heart disease.
Building on emerging evidence that the
timing of meals in relation to exercise can shift how effective exercise is,
the team behind this study wanted to focus on the impact on the fat stores in
muscles for individuals who either worked out before or after eating and the
effect this had on insulin response to feeding.
Dr Javier Gonzalez of the Department for
Health at the University of Bath explained: “Our results suggest that changing
the timing of when you eat in relation to when you exercise can bring about
profound and positive changes to your overall health.
“We found that the men in the study who
exercised before breakfast burned double the amount of fat than the group who
exercised after. Importantly, whilst this didn’t have any effect on weight
loss, it did dramatically improve their overall health.
“The group who exercised before
breakfast increased their ability to respond to insulin, which is all the more
remarkable given that both exercise groups lost a similar amount of weight and
both gained a similar amount of fitness. The only difference was the timing of
the food intake.”
Over the six-week trial, the scientists
found that the muscles from the group who exercised before breakfast were more
responsive to insulin compared to the group who exercised after breakfast, in
spite of identical training sessions and matched food intake. The muscles from
those who exercised before breakfast also showed greater increases in key
proteins, specifically those involved in transporting glucose from the
bloodstream to the muscles.
For the insulin response to feeding
after the 6-week study, remarkably, the group who exercised after breakfast
were in fact no better than the control group.
The study was led by Dr Rob Edinburgh as
part of his PhD.
Co-author, Dr Gareth Wallis of the
University of Birmingham added: “This work suggests that performing exercise in
the overnight-fasted state can increase the health benefits of exercise for individuals,
without changing the intensity, duration or perception of their effort. We now
need to explore the longer-term effects of this type of exercise and whether
women benefit in the same way as men.”
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