Heading towards the weights section at the gym can now give you more than just a toned body. A team of international researchers recently carried out a study which concluded that weight lifting not only helps burn excess fat but could also prevent diabetes.
Experimenting on mice, the researchers created one that carried a gene which when activated produced muscles similar to those gained by weight training. Prior to this, when the gene was inactive the mouse was fed a fast food diet and hence turned obese and also developed liver problems.
But once the gene was activated, the same mouse burned up the fat and the fat-related liver disease also disappeared. Another remarkable conclusion found was that the mouse stopped being resistant to insulin, a condition which is related to the development of type II diabetes.
This result continued even though the mouse was continually fed with the same fast food diet with high fat and sugar content. The mouse did not have to increase its physical activity. The team continued to alter the mouse’s gene make-up to grow a certain type of muscle known as Type II which is similar to the muscle built up while resistance training.
“We’ve shown that Type II muscle does more than allow you to pick up heavy objects. It’s also important in controlling whole-body metabolism,” said lead researcher Kenneth Walsh of Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM). It may be because an increase in this type of muscle sparks changes in the rest of the body, the researchers said.
So this is one thing less Schwarzenegger has to worry about.