Research

Hormonal

Two weeks of acute physical inactivity (step count <1,000/day) causes a significant decline in glycemic control and integrated muscle protein synthesis in overweight, prediabetic older adults, and these metabolic impairments fail to recover after two weeks of returning to habitual activity levels.

If you are an older adult with prediabetes, even a short period of reduced activity (fewer than 1,000 steps a day) can worsen your blood sugar control and muscle building processes. Crucially, simply going back to your normal activity level for two weeks may not be enough to fix these issues. You may need to be more proactive, such as engaging in specific exercise or medical management, to prevent these declines and help your body recover faster after periods of inactivity.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Our findings demonstrate that 2 wk of SR leads to lowered rates of muscle protein synthesis and a worsening of glycemic control that unlike younger adults is not recovered during return to normal activity in overweight, prediabetic elderly humans.
Chris McGlory et al. · The Journals of Gerontology Series A · 2017

Why this rating

Randomized controlled trial design with a clear intervention and recovery phase, though limited by a small sample size (n=22) and short duration.

Source

Failed Recovery of Glycemic Control and Myofibrillar Protein Synthesis With 2 wk of Physical Inactivity in Overweight, Prediabetic Older Adults

Chris McGlory et al. · The Journals of Gerontology Series A · 2017

DOI 10.1093/gerona/glx203

rct · n=22Cited 116×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →