WOMEN who regularly lift weights or do other resistance exercise may reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a study has found.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School followed up 99,316 women aged 36–81 years who were participants in the Nurses’ Health Study and found that those who reported weekly sessions of just 30 minutes of total muscle-strengthening activity had an 18% lower relative risk of type 2 diabetes, compared to their non-weight lifting counterparts.

Total muscle strengthening activities included resistance training as well as lower-intensity exercise such as yoga or stretching.

Women who participated in resistance exercise had the lowest relative risk, but even those who only participated in the lower-intensity activity showed an improvement in relative risk compared to those who did nothing.

The benefits were on top of any benefits gained from aerobic exercise. The women who engaged in the recommended 150 minutes of aerobic activity and at least an hour of muscle-strengthening activity per week had the most substantial relative risk reduction, cutting their chance of developing type 2 diabetes by a third.

Previous research has shown the importance of aerobic activity to stave off type 2 diabetes, and regular resistance training is already recommended for both men and women to maintain muscle mass and protect against other diseases.

However, this is the first study to demonstrate the benefits of muscle-strengthening for the prevention of type 2 diabetes, and that the findings concur with similar research in men.

The results are also consistent with those published last year from the 2004–05 Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study that found regular strength training was associated with lower prevalence of impaired glucose metabolism, independent of other physical activity.

PLOS Med 2014; online 14 January