COMPARISON OF AEROBIC EXERCISE AND YOGA THERAPY ON ENDURANCE CAPACITY IN DIABETES MELLITUS PATIENTS.

Background: Regular exercise and yoga are key elements in the management of type 2 diabetes. It can help people with diabetes to achieve variety of goals including enhancement of cardiopulmonary fitness, improvement of glycemic control, reduction of blood pressure and improvement in quality of life. Walking and asanas with rhythmic breathing exercises are often the most popular and most preferred feasible type of exercises in overweight middle aged and elderly people with diabetes. Objective: To compare the effect of aerobic exercise and yoga therapy on endurance capacity in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients. Methods: 30 participants aged 40-55 years diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending OPD of Rajah Muthiah Medical college and Hospital were recruited. Patients with renal cardiac complications were excluded. Aerobic group involves moderate brisk walking and yoga group involves asanas with pranayama 45 minutes daily 5 days per week for 4 weeks. Endurance capacity was measured by Harvard Step test before and after aerobic training and asanas with pranayama and compared with both groups. Results and Conclusion: Independent t test showed no significant differences in endurance capacity between aerobic exercise and yoga therapy. The study revealed that regular practice of both the aerobic exercise and yoga are essential and effective in improving overall functional capacity of diabetes mellitus patients.


ISSN: 2320-5407
Int. J. Adv. Res. 6(11), 393-398 394 Yoga therapy consists of 3 components including physical postures, breathing exercises and meditation. Yoga postures improve sensitivity of β cells of pancreas to glucose signal and also the improvement in insulin secretion, improvement in lipid level due to increased hepatic lipase and lipoprotein lipase at cellular level increased uptake of triglycerides by adipose tissues thereby increases the utilization and metabolism of glucose in peripheral tissues, liver and adipose tissues. Pranayama bring new homeostasis in the body. [7][8][9] Low physical fitness mainly cardiopulmonary fitness seems to be a stronger predictor of both cardiovascular and all cause mortality than any other well established risk factors. 11 Several studies reported that increase in cardiopulmonary fitness reduces the risk of cardio-metabolic diseases and affect these comorbidities by regulation of cardiac output and blood pressure. [12][13][14][15] Therefore,the purpose of the study was to determine the effect of aerobic exercise and yoga therapy in aerobic endurance and compare both interventions especially in the diabetes patients.

Objective:-
To compare the effect of aerobic exercise and yoga therapy on endurance capacity in diabetes mellitus patients.

Study Design
Randomised clinical trial Materials And Methods:-Participants: 30 middle aged adults of type2 diabetes mellitus were randomly selected from Rajah Muthiah Medical College and Hospital, Annamalai Nagar, Chidambaram, Lord Nataraja Temple City. They were assigned into two groups.
[Aerobic exercise] Group A =15 and [Yoga therapy] Group B =15. Demographic data like age, gender and BMI were documented. All subjects got written consent before participation in the study. The detailed procedure was explained as well as demonstrated to the subjects.
The following anthropometric measurements were made on the subjects prior to the commencement of the test: (1) The height in centimetres was measured with subjects standing without their shoes. (2) The weight in kilograms was recorded using a standardized weighing machine. (3) All the subjects were familiarized with Modified Harvard step test and PFI (Physical fitness index)score was calculated.

Exclusion criteria:
Systemic illness, patients with neurological symptoms, renal or cardiac complications, practice of yoga or other exercise training schedule, any endocrine disorders and obesity or anemia.

Procedure: Aerobic exercise:
Subjects from group A were asked to walk for 45 minutes 5 times a week for 4 weeks. The subjects were asked to walk at a brisk pace and cover as much distance as possible. Moderate brisk walking approximately 40-60% of VO2 max and 50-70% of MHR according to American College of Sports Medicine and American Heart Association guidelines Meditation sessions were conducted in first 10 minutes followed by performance of the above asanas in the next 35 minutes. 2 repetitions of each asana were given in the sequence mentioned above. The session ended with 395 Shavasana. A 30 second rest pause was provided between each asana. A demonstration was given to the subjects prior to the intervention. At the end of 4 weeks, PFI was measured again for both groups and the data was statistically analyzed.

Cardiopulmonary fitness parameter: Modified Harvard step test:
The procedure of this method is that subject took rest for 30 minutes prior to test after which the resting pulse was noted. Then the subject was asked to perform the exercise of ascending and descending Harvard step of 33 cm height, 30 times per min for 5 min. If the subject was dyspneic, felt exhausted or felt pain in chest or legs during the exercise, he was asked to discontinue the exercise immediately.
Time is noted with the help of stopwatch. At the end of test ask the subject to sit immediately on chair, count the pulse and record it during 1 to 1-1 /2 min, 2 to 2/-1 /2 min and 3 to 3/-1 /2 min intervals. Total of these three reading is called recovery pulse. Convert the duration of exercise in seconds and Physical fitness index is calculated as follows.

Statistical analysis:
The collected data were analyzed via SPSS statistical analysis package version 19, using dependent T-student test to compare intergroup mean differences. Independent T-student test was applied to compare mean differences between groups. The Significance level was set at P <0.05.       The above table 3 showed the comparison of post treatment for group A and B. The results showed that there was No significant difference in between pre (73.4 ±4.8) and post treatment (74.78±3.9) at p<0.05. The study found that PFI score of aerobic exercise group A was comparatively higher than the yoga therapy group B.

Discussion:-
The main finding of the study was that exercise elicit greater improvements in PFI. Many studies have shown improvement in PFI after regular aerobic training. But we didn"t get proper references for the studies which compared aerobic exercises and yoga therapy on PFI. But some studies have found improvement in VO2 max or aerobic fitness after regular aerobic training especially high intensity exercise. 14,15 Reasons why regular aerobic exercise training showed improvement in PFI are as follows; 1. Exercise makes demands on the body systems over and above normal daily activities and as result, the systems adapts anatomically and physiologically 2. With regular exercise training there is an increase in the size of energy stores as well as in the activity of enzymes which generate energy. 3. The ability of the muscle to extract oxygen improves and there is a shift towards aerobic metabolism.

4.
The main physiological change due to training is in lowering cardiac frequency, indicating increase in stroke volume. 16 The Harvard test is a sub maximal fitness test, as it predicts cardiovascular fitness (endurance) from the rise of heart rate during moderate exercise. This makes it a very popular fitness test. Endurance-trained subjects are known to have a significant resting bradycardia. However, only a few studies have examined the role of training intensity in lowering resting heart rate. Some studies showed that there is significant decrease in resting heart rate. [17][18][19] Whereas other studies showed no difference in RHR. 20,21 In our study the PFI increased in both aerobic exercise and yoga but more significant increase in aerobic group in between pre and post exercise than yoga group. The study revealed that both aerobic exercise and yoga showed improvement in physical fitness index but improvement in physical fitness index was comparatively higher in aerobic exercise than yoga using the modified HST. Our finding correlated with finding of Dr.K Ranjith Babu et al and Sharma et al. The reason suggested was that male is generally more aggressive and accepts challenge more than female.

Conclusion:-
Both aerobic exercise and yoga therapy significantly improves physical fitness by reducing resting Heart rate.