Does the winter blues put walking on snooze?
As a low-cost and relatively convenient form of physical activity, walking is often a preferred means of daily exercise and can go a long way to lower blood sugar levels and reduce the risk of heart disease for those afflicted with type 2 diabetes. However, do Canada’s characteristic cold winters and heavy snowfalls affect walking patterns to the point of increasing blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetes patients? Dr. Kaberi Dasgupta from McGill University is leading a project, which for the first time seeks to plough through these questions. Studying groups of people with type 2 diabetes four times over the course of a year, she will monitor their walking patterns through pedometer tracking and measure their overall blood sugar control with a blood test. Understanding how blood sugar levels and walking correspond to seasonal shifts and related climate changes may help to develop effective strategies to manage glucose levels such as increasing glucose lowering medications before winter