Exercising during the early evening boosts your metabolism and makes it easier to control overnight blood glucose levels, a study has found. 

Researchers from the Australian Catholic University investigated the metabolic health of 24 inactive men who were at risk of type 2 diabetes and given a high-fat diet.  

Workouts late in the day lowered overnight glucose levels, while morning and evening exercise both improved heart fitness. 

Lead Researcher Trine Moholdt says the findings are significant for people living with diabetes who often had glucose regulation problems. 

“We found that exercising in the morning or evening induced similar improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness, but nocturnal glycaemic control only improved in the evening exercise group,” Dr Moholdt said. 

“The group who exercised in the early evening had lower nocturnal glucose concentrations.”  

“That is important because one of the things that individuals with type 2 diabetes experience are nocturnal spikes in glucose, so when they go to sleep their glucose peaks and spikes in the night.” 

“Our study was able to show that we could flatten those nocturnal spikes and that’s a really important finding because not only were the night-time glucose concentrations lower, the cholesterol was lower as well.” 

Twenty-four inactive men between the ages of 30-45 with a Body Mass Indices ranging from 27-35 (overweight or obese) – were recruited. They were given a high-fat diet for 11 consecutive days. 

None of the participants had type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease, but all were at risk of developing the conditions. 

The participants were divided into three groups – those that exercised in the morning, those in the evening and those that got no exercise at all. 

Within five days, the metabolic benefits of evening workouts over morning exercise were evident with decreases in fasting blood glucose, insulin, cholesterol, triacylglycerol and LDL- cholesterol. 

“This study does suggest that evening exercise may be more beneficial for people with disrupted metabolism than the same exercise done earlier in the day,” said Dr Moholdt. 

The full findings of the study were published in the journal, Diabetolgia. 

Key findings 

• Evening exercise helps control overnight glucose levels. 
• This research could be significant for people with diabetes who have glucose regulation problems. 

• Only nighttime exercise improved nocturnal glycaemic control.