Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes Increase Risk Of Bone Problems

Though obesity and type 2 diabetes negatively affect bone health, exercise can work to combat risk fracture, according to a recent study.

When studying the bones of rats, researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia found that rats that exercised did not lose bone strength. In fact, they had stronger bones than normal weight controls that did not.

During the study, researchers focused on how the development of obesity and type 2 diabetes affected bone structure, formation and strength over time. They specifically examined the bones of rats that showed a predisposition to overeating, which caused them to gain weight and become insulin resistant.

While researchers let half of the rats overeat and volunarily exercise on running wheels, the other rats programmed to overeat remained sedentary. They also had a control group of non-overeating rats that remained sedentary.

Researchers examined their bones in the three groups at different ages to determine how early in the development of obesity and diabetes the bone was negatively affected. 

"As the rats continued to grow, all groups increased their bone mass, but the rats that were obese and sedentary didn't accumulate as much bone mass relative to their body weight," researcher Pam Hinton, an associate professor in the MU Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology, said in a statement. "So, decreased bone formation, loss of bone mass and decreased bone strength all were present in the obese, diabetic, sedentary rats."

While the study does not yet explain how exercise increased bone quality, it did show that rats in the study that exercised were healthier than those that did not. Because of this, they did not develop the same insulin resistance of diabetes, which may explain why the bones of the exercising rats were healthier, researchers say. 

"Once we can identify why bones in individuals with obesity and Type 2 diabetes are weaker and how they become weaker, we can start developing more treatments through lifestyle and behavioral changes," Hinton concluded.

The study is published in the journal Metabolism.

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