Unfortunately, diabetics have a whole lot more to worry about than their blood sugars.
Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes cause volatile swings of blood glucose. This volatility is incredibly damaging to blood vessels and, over time, the whole body becomes affected by it.
Blood vessels carry blood to every part of your body: your brain, your heart, your organs, your eyes, and your limbs. When the blood vessels become damaged, the blood isn’t able to travel as easily.
As you can imagine, when all these parts of the body stop receiving adequate blood flow, bad things begin to happen.
One very common ailment among diabetics is heart disease. The weakened blood vessels 
within the heart render a lot more damaged than that of someone without diabetes.
As a result, you will always find a lot of doctors recommending to diabetics that they keep their hearts as healthy as possible!
One way to do this is through adequate exercise.
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore compared exercise habits and the heart health of 9,400 people. They found that those who did not exercise were 39% more likely to have heart damage than their peers who exercised regularly.
The magical number of minutes per week seemed to be either 75 minutes of vigorous exercise or 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week.
Does that sound like it’s too much for you? Well, try breaking it up a bit.
High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a really popular form of exercise that only requires about 15 minutes of vigorous activity per session.
If you practice your favorite HIIT workout as little as five times a week, then you can gain the same benefits as someone who works out for greater chunks of time.
Don’t let that intimidate you, though. The study also reported that people who practiced 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week also reaped protective factors against heart disease. This could be as easy as a 30-minute walk after dinner each night!
Your heart health is worth the little extra push, so get out there and get exercising!
[expand title=”References“]
Health Day. URL Link. Retrieved April 27, 2017.
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