
Whole Body Vibration Could Be As Effective As Exercise in Treating Type 2 Diabetes
A new study on mice suggests that whole body vibration—in which a person lies or stands on a vibrating platform to mimic the effects of exercise—might be just as beneficial in promoting weight loss, and in preventing and treating type 2 diabetes, as lacing up your running shoes and hitting the open road.
“Our study is the first to show that whole-body vibration may be just as effective as exercise at combatting some of the negative consequences of obesity and diabetes,” says Meghan E. McGee-Lawrence, Ph.D., of Augusta University, who is a lead author of the study published in the journal Endocrinology. “The results are surprising and encouraging.”
The results came from a study on two types of mice and three intervention groups, with six to 10 mice in each group, McGee-Lawrence says. One type of mice was normal and another was obese, with type 2 diabetes. Those two types were split into groups with one running daily on a treadmill for 45 minutes and another undergoing whole body vibration, or WBV. (a third group was a control group that were sedentary, and did not undergo WBV or the treadmill.)
After 12 weeks researchers discovered that mice who underwent WBV and those who spent time on the treadmill enjoyed similar metabolic benefits.
“Both groups had increased insulin sensitivity and the obese mice who did WBV gained less weight than obese mice who did nothing,” McGee-Lawrence says. “Another benefit was that those mice who underwent WBV, and exercised on the treadmill, also showed increased markers for bone formation and improved muscle size.”
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