Effects of Tai Chi exercise on type 2 diabetes mellitus

Objective:
To observe the effects of Tai Chi exercise on type 2 diabetes mellitus, and elucidate its mechanism.
Methods:
Use self-control methods, 12 females with average body mass index 26.1±2.2 kg/m2 are selected as subjects. The subjects were 58-75 years old, and they had suffered from diabetes for no more than 2 years. 12 subjects were scheduled to have Tai Chi exercise for 8 weeks, about 30 minutes per day until their heart rates reached 120 times per minutes for over 10 minutes. During this course, no medicine was used. There was a four-week’s no-medication treatment for all the subjects before the study started. And at the end of 8th week, all the 12 subjects do exercise of Tai Chi to differentiate between transient (acute) and training (chronic) effects of Tai Chi exercise.
Paired samples T Test was adopted to analyze the data.
Results:
1. By 8 weeks of Tai Chi exercise, the serum levels of glucose decreased obviously (p<0.05), low insulin receptor numbers (r2) and its binding volumes (R2) increased obviously (p<0.05). Insulin (Ins) level did not change obviously.
2. After the acute Tai Chi exercise on the end of 8th week , the serum levels of glucose, high and low insulin receptor numbers (r1, r2) and its binding volumes (R1, R2) increased obviously (p<0.05), while insulin levels did not change obviously.
Conclusion:
8 weeks’ Tai Chi exercise decreased the serum levels of glucose effectively, while maintaining insulin level in normal level. Increasing insulin receptor’s activity may be one of the mechanisms, which improved the metabolism of glucose effectively on type 2 diabetes mellitus.