Aerobic and Resistance Training Ended Up Equal for Type 2 Diabetes

The study is a randomized controlled trial, published in 2026 in the journal Bioinformation. It enrolled 60 people with type 2 diabetes. Thirty were assigned to structured aerobic training and 30 to structured resistance training. The authors are Mendhe, Kumar and Kadve.

Participants were aged 30 to 60 at enrollment and had lived with diabetes for more than a year. People who smoked, or who had kidney or liver problems, uncontrolled high blood pressure or diabetic complications, were excluded. Most participants in both groups were women: 80% in the aerobic group and 86.7% in the resistance group. The groups were similar at the start in age, sex, height and weight.

Both programs were supervised. Intensity was set using a standard effort scale, at a level described as "somewhat hard." The aerobic group did continuous rhythmic activity. The resistance group trained the major muscle groups. Researchers checked results at several points, including 3, 6, 9 and 12 months, with longer evaluation of up to 18 months described in the trial framework.

They tracked blood sugar, blood pressure and blood fats such as HDL, LDL, total cholesterol and triglycerides. They also tracked behaviors, including diet knowledge, readiness to change diet and barriers to eating well.

Both groups improved. HbA1c, a measure of average blood sugar over recent months, fell from 6.71 to 6.19 in the aerobic group and from 6.77 to 6.23 in the resistance group after one year. Fasting blood glucose in the aerobic group fell from 166.33 to 133.33 mg/dL. The text we had cut off before giving the resistance group's final fasting figure.

The paper says the aerobic group showed slightly greater blood sugar reductions along the way. The study also says resistance training had better early effects on diet-related behaviors and metabolic adaptation. But by the end, the authors report, the two groups' outcomes converged, which they read as comparable effectiveness over time.

The limits matter. This is one small trial. Participants were mostly women, and their average HbA1c at the start was already fairly low for people with diabetes. The paper also lists a baseline body weight for the resistance group with an unusually large spread, which suggests a data quirk. The trial cannot say which exercise is better for any one person, and it did not test other doses or routines.

The practical reading, from the authors' conclusion, is that both types of exercise are beneficial. That fits a related trial we covered on October 21, in which older men with type 2 diabetes who all did strength training gained more from added protein. That study tested add-ons to training, not one type of exercise against another, so the two do not answer the same question.

Larger and longer trials in more varied groups will show whether the early differences and the later match-up hold up.

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