New study highlights benefits of exercise for diabetes patients

European scientists have carried out a study showing the specific ways in which sufferers of type 2 diabetes can benefit from regular exercise.

A team from the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands carried out an assessment of the effects of exercise on organ-specific fat accumulation and cardiac function in type 2 diabetes patients, independent of any other lifestyle or dietary changes.

It was found that although cardiac functions were unaffected, moderate-intensity exercise helped to reduce the levels of fat stored around the heart, in the liver and in the abdomen of patients, even when their dietary composition remained unchanged.

This can help reduce the cardiovascular risk experienced by those in this patient group, many of whom are overweight or obese.

Study author Dr Hildo Lamb, from the department of radiology at Leiden University Medical Center, added: "In the future, we hope to be able to use advanced imaging techniques to predict in individual patients which therapeutic strategy is most effective: diet, medication, exercise, surgery or certain combinations."

In the UK, around 2.9 million people are affected by diabetes, with 90 percent of these cases being the type 2 variant of the disease.