Research
Hormonal
Aerobic exercise training increases skeletal muscle GLUT4 protein levels, which enhances insulin-stimulated muscle glucose disposal.
Regular aerobic exercise increases the amount of GLUT4, a protein that helps move glucose into your muscles. This makes your body more sensitive to insulin and helps manage blood sugar levels more effectively.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Aerobic exercise training has been shown to increase GLUT4 protein levels 20–70% in human [128–136] and rodent skeletal muscle [137–141], suggesting that aerobic training would enhance acute insulin- and exercise/muscle contraction-stimulated muscle glucose transport. Consistent with this prediction, studies have demonstrated that aerobic training enhances insulin-stimulated muscle glucose disposal 20–100% [131,134,142–146].
Why this rating
Review of multiple studies showing consistent increases in GLUT4 and glucose disposal.
Source
Regulation of Skeletal Muscle Glucose Transport and Glucose Metabolism by Exercise Training
Parker L. Evans et al. · Nutrients · 2019
DOI 10.3390/nu11102432
narrative_reviewCited 184×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Aerobic exercise training improves systemic glucose homeostasis in individuals with type 2 diabetes by decreasing HbA1c and fasting blood glucose levels.Good
- Resistance exercise training improves systemic glucose homeostasis in individuals with type 2 diabetes by decreasing HbA1c and fasting blood glucose levels.Good
- Resistance exercise training increases glucose transport into skeletal muscle, but unlike aerobic training, it does not consistently increase GLUT4 protein levels.Moderate
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