Exercise and physical training in the treatment of diabetes mellitus

Regular exercise has been recommended for diabetic patients for many years, and was identified along with diet and insulin as one of the three components of good therapy by Eliot Joslin in the 1920s. Nevertheless, until recently, little effort had been made to determine the benefits and risks that result from exercise in the diabetic population, and there have been few attempts to define the specifics of an appropriate exercise prescription. With the recent popularity of exercise in the therapy for a variety of chronic diseases, there has been a renewed interest in the role of exercise in the therapy for diabetes.