What Kind Of Exercise Program Is Best For Someone With Type 1 Diabetes?

— -- Question:What kind of exercise program is best for someone with type 1 diabetes?

Answer:Patients with type 1 diabetes should maintain an active lifestyle. In general, I'm not sure that the exercise recommendations are any different for patients with type 1 diabetes than they are in patients with type 2 diabetes.

But it's important to recognize that patients with type 1 diabetes are often thinner, the disease occurs at a younger age, and ultimately exercise capabilities may be much higher in patients with type 1 diabetes than type 2 diabetes. Exercise recommendations really are those that would be fit for the general population, and that would include at least 30 minutes of active activity five to seven days a week, and now it's interesting 'cause the most recent guidelines from the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association has suggested some resistance training might be added to the exercise prescription. I do not think that really patients with type 1 diabetes need be treated any differently unless they suffer from end-organ complications that might limit their exercise capacity.

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