Effects Of A Regular Exercise Program On Life Quality Of Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus
Şensu DİNÇER1, Murat MENGİ2, Sertaç YAKAL3, Sevtun Algan SOFYALI4, Mehmet ALTAN2, Kubilay KARŞIDAĞ6, Gökhan METİN1
1Istanbul Faculty Of Medicine, Sports Medicine Department, Istanbul, Turkey
2Cerrahpasa Faculty Of Medicine, Department Of Physiology, Istanbul, Turkey
3Istanbul Faculty Of Medicine, Department Of Sports Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey
4Erenkoy Physical Therapy And Rehabilitation Hospital, Department Of Sports Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey
5Cerrahpasa Faculty Of Medicine, Department Of Physiology, Istanbul, Turkey
6Istanbul Faculty Of Medicine, Department of Endocrinology in Internal Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey
7Istanbul Faculty Of Medicine, Department of Sports Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey
Keywords: SF-36, quality of life, supervised aerobic exercise, type 2 diabetes mellitus
Abstract
Objective: We aimed to evaluate the effects of a supervised aerobic exercise therapy on quality of life in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM).
Material and Methods: Thirty-one patients with type 2 DM (8 male/23 female; aged between 42 and 65 years) who had hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels between 7.5% and 9.5% were included in the study. Anthropometric measurements (height, body weight, body fat percentage, body fat mass and body mass index, waist circumference, hip circumference) and cardiopulmonary exercise tests were performed before and after the study. The patients undertook a 12-week aerobic training program that included aerobic-type walking and/or cycling 3 days a week. All patients were asked to complete the Turkish version of the 36-Item Short Form (SF-36) Health Survey before and after the training program. SF-36 is a commonly used questionnaire that was designed to measure life quality of patients who have physical illnesses
Results: We detected significant improvements in all subscales of the SF-36 questionnaire. The emotional role limitation score showed a less significant reduction (p=0.049) compared with the other subscales. The anthropometric values were also improved significantly after the 12-week aerobic training program (p<0.05).
Conclusion: We observed that a supervised regular aerobic exercise program used in this study had a positive effect on the quality of life in individuals with type 2 DM in our study. Therefore, it might be a beneficial strategy to encourage patients with type 2 DM to do regular exercise during the management of their disease in order to overcome the mental, social, and physical difficulties.
The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.
