Why Growing More Capillaries Matters, Especially If You Are Diabetic

Photo by Jordan Heath on Unsplash

Here's how, and it's not too hard

The disease of diabetes has dire consequences for the health of our vascular system - our arteries, veins and capillaries. These vital pipelines become clogged up with excess sugar in our blood. This clogging results in nerves, cells and organs dying, e.g. hairs falling out, nerve pain as they die, blindness, kidney failure.

Every cell in our body relies on efficient blood flow, including our muscles. If we can increase the number of capillaries in our muscles, we can improve the blood flow and offset some of the adverse effects of diabetes.

Reduction in muscle capillarisation contributes to aging impairments

This is even more important as we age because a reduction in skeletal muscle capillarisation contributes to aging-associated impairments in muscle mass, metabolism, fitness and function. Diabetes itself inhibits the development of new capillaries, thus exacerbating the aging effect of lower capillarisation.

Also, late-onset diabetes - that which develops in adults - is associated with obesity. Studies have found that those who are obese also have a lower capillary density in their muscles. These two things together are a nasty combination. Fortunately, both are reversible.

What is capillarisation?

Capillarisation is the process of formation of an increase in capillaries (angiogenesis) that surround a muscle. (Capillaries are the tiny blood vessels that help to transfer blood to and from our tissues.) Capillarisation can occur in skeletal muscle, heart muscle and the alveoli in our lungs.

​Imagine increased capillarisation as a vine which we are feeding to make it grow further and further and deeper and deeper over a supporting structure. In this case, the supporting structure is our skeletal muscles. 

In fact, you've probably already seen it many times without recognising it. Check the image of the body-builder below. Do you see all the vascularisation that has developed to support his muscle mass? Below the skin, in his muscles, there will be extensive capillarisation - it's all about the need for increased blood flow.

Image Credit : Quora

Increasing the number of capillaries has several significant benefits for everyone, and for diabetics (and pre-diabetics) in particular:

1. You need more blood to fill the extra capillaries and hence the sugar level across your entire vascular system will be slightly reduced.
2. Your ability to get the sugar in your blood to muscles and for muscles to extract that glucose (insulin sensitivity) into their energy stores will be enhanced.
3. The extra reach of nutrients through the extra capillaries stimulates improved mitochondrial function in your muscles, and this aids your blood sugar control.
4. The new capillaries - as a result of capillarisation - are fresh and flexible and pass through nutrients efficiently as compared to your existing vascular system, which may have been adversely affected by diabetes.
5. The development of new capillaries precedes the development of exercise-induced transition of slow-twitch to fast-twitch muscle fibres. This is important since we lose most fast-twitch muscle mass as we age, which makes us predisposed to falling.
6. The increased reach of new capillaries facilitates improved release and transport of myokines from the skeletal muscle that preserves or augments your overall cardiovascular health.
7. The same reach as the previous point facilitates improved "cross-talk" between your skeletal muscle and your brain via the flow of neurotrophins and oxidative stress modulators - this means you'll improve your brain health and reduce general metabolic inflammation.

And that's not all! In addition to all these somewhat obscure metabolic benefits, you will be able to exercise longer and more efficiently (you won't need to breathe as heavily). Your lungs and legs and heart will all work stronger and better.

In short, you'll have better aerobic fitness. That in itself has other significant benefits (but we won't go there in this article).

The Exact Slow Pace You Must Run and Cycle To Max Fat-Burning

How do you stimulate capillarisation?

You grow more capillaries when you exercise - when your muscles tell the body that they need more fuel and more waste disposal. If your muscles don't get more fuel, then you stop moving, and if they cannot clear their waste, then you hit the wall. Training improves both those capacities in part facilitated by the growth of more capillaries. 

While it has been well accepted that aerobic exercise promotes capillarisation, less well known is that resistance exercise also does the same (although not through the same metabolic pathways). Many recent studies have shown that HIIT and resistance training work as effectively (and take less time) than endurance training.

That's good news. You can continue to train as you wish.

If you prefer aerobic exercise then aim for 40 to 60 minutes of training at 65% VO2max 5 times a week. That's an exercise level between "somewhat hard" and "hard" - you would be able to hold a short conversation but it is becoming uncomfortable to keep doing it.

If you prefer resistance training, aim for high workloads 3 times a week. You can do HIIT as sprint training if you like to run, or in classes.

Rowing is always good, either as endurance or interval training. Or at home, search for a home HIIT program that suits your level of fitness and motivation.

All Exercise Matters But Intense Matters More If You Want To Live Longer

Exercise is an important part of managing your diabetes

The result of you consistently doing any of the above will be to improve your vascular health, your metabolic fitness, and your brain health.

And it will lower the risks of cardiovascular diseases and other associated health problems caused by diabetes - it will help you manage your diabetes and possibly moderate all the adverse consequences.

If you are pre-diabetic (not yet diabetic) doing this will help you avoid becoming diabetic. It's worth doing everything you can to avoid diabetes. Believe me, I know as I'm diabetic (Type 2).

Although it can be managed in most cases, there is no cure for diabetes. Better to motivate yourself now to do things to avoid it, then to be forced into doing those things to avoid the dire health consequences once you have it.

Think of all those new healthy capillaries growing as you exercise, and keep going.
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Good luck.

> More posts to help you with EXERCISES
> More posts to help you with DIABETES
> If you are a @MEDIUM reader my publication Body Age Buster has hundreds of categorised posts which I have written especially for men and women over 50.

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