Increasing Daily Step Count Results in an Improvement in BMI and Aortic Blood Pressure in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

Background: We investigated whether increasing daily steps by 3000 improves glycemic indices (HbA1c and glycemic variability), cardiometabolic risk factors (BMI, blood pressure (BP) and lipids) and aortic stiffness in middle-aged Chinese men with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods: In this 12 weeks, pre and post intervention, prospective study, 20 chinese men (40-70 years old; baseline HbA1c 7-10%) with T2DM were recruited. They were on stable therapeutic regime and had no preexisting macrovascular complications. Measurements included glycemic profile (HbA1c, CGMS (Medtronics iPro)), BMI, BP, fasting lipids, aortic BP and stiffness (SphygmoCor Xcel) and daily steps (pedometer). The intervention was to increase the daily step count by 3000/day. We compared group 1 who achieved an increase of >3000 steps/day (N=7) with group 2 who failed to achieve target (N=11). All comparisons were performed using Student’s independent t test. Results: We found that compared to Group 2, Group 1 had a significant improvement in BMI (-1.14 vs. +0.11), aortic systolic (-1.38 vs. +6.58mmHg) and diastolic (-4.63 vs. +4.08mmHg) BP(p<0.05). Interaction analysis showed that in patients who had an improvement in BMI, there was a significant improvement in HbA1c (β=0.57, p=0.041). Changes in indices of glycemic variability were not significantly different between the two groups. Conclusion: Increasing step counts by more than 3000 steps/day resulted in improvement in BMI and aortic BP with an interactive improvement in HbA1c in the long term. Further studies with a larger sample size and a longer follow-up are needed to confirm our findings. Disclosure C. Seow: None. L. Xia: None. J.S. Tan: None. X. Tang: None. B. Sun: None. R. Dalan: None.