Diabetes: Are calf raises effective in lowering blood sugar ?
A sweet tooth can cause you much more than just a sugar rush. It could make you pre-diabetic or even lead to the diagnosis of diabetes.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDCP >18,000 young people have type 1 diabetes, and > 5,000 have type 2 diabetes T2D.
With the rise of café culture and binge eating, more and more adults are toying with the line of diabetes diagnosis and most of them are not even aware of the same.
I see so many young people flirting with pre-diabetic levels and want to share a few things that helped me – an easy to do exercise while sitting anywhere. With diabetes on the rise, performing seated calf raises for 10 minutes after meals indicates this exercise activates the soleus muscle, potentially lowering sugar levels by up to 52% by improving insulin response and glucose uptake.
Most diabetologists will tell you to go for walk after your meals to control your sugar spikes.
As per a study published in the National Library of Medicine, the soleus muscle in the calves is capable of raising and sustaining for hours the local rate of oxidative metabolism to high levels.
Another study published in Science Direct stated that doing simple resistance activities such as calf raises for 3 minutes, every 30 minutes over 8 hours, decreased postprandial glucose increase. What engaging the soleus muscles does is, it makes the cells more responsive to insulin and improves glucose uptake. Their movement also ensures the flow of glucose and oxygen throughout the body, thus promoting better blood sugar regulation.
Thus, calf raises can be one of the efforts you need to take to control your post-meal sugar spikes.
