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If blood sugar control is your aim, should you lose weight by doing more exercise or reduce your calorie intake? They're equally effective, say researchers. People lose weight for various reasons. Probably the body beautiful is the main one. But believe it or not, some people actually do it because they want to be healthier. And in fact weight loss is associated with a rise in the good form of cholesterol - HDL and an increased sensitivity to the sugar lowering hormone, insulin - which in turn means your blood sugar levels fall - a good thing. There's been a bit of a debate, though, about whether - if blood sugar control is your aim - losing weight by doing more exercise is more effective than reducing your calorie intake? This has been tested in a trial of male and female middle-aged couch potatoes, some of whom were put on a diet, some of whom did about an hour of aerobic exercise a day while keeping their intake the same and others were just given lifestyle advice. The diet and exercise groups turned out to lose similar amounts of weight and derived the same health benefits in terms of glucose control, so the advice to lose weight by doing both remains sweet.
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