How exercise works depends on the time of day
Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.
More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.Does it make a difference whether you do exercise in the morning or in the evening? Yes indeed! Both are effective - but in different ways.
This is what Danish researchers have found out at least in a mouse experiment. Scientists from the University of Copenhagen sent their laboratory rodents to the wheel either at the beginning of their active day or at the end of it. For nocturnal animals this means the beginning and end of darkness, for humans it would be morning and evening accordingly.
The result of the mouse test: "Exercise in the morning activates genes in muscle cells that enable them to metabolize fat and sugar better," reports Prof. Jonas Thue Treebak from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research in Copenhagen.
Morning exercise for diabetics
This effect could be of particular interest to people with type 2 diabetes. The central problem with this disease is the so-called insulin resistance. The body cells, especially those of the muscles, are increasingly unable to absorb sugar from the blood.
It has long been known that exercise counteracts this problem - the blood sugar level also improves permanently. According to the new results, physical training could possibly develop this desired effect even better in the morning than in the evening.
Does evening exercise help you lose weight?
But sport in the evening also has advantages: "It increases energy expenditure over a longer period of time," explains Treebak. Athletes know this as the so-called afterburn effect: the body burns more energy for a long time even after the actual exercise. That in turn could promote weight loss.
Internal clock influences the effect of sports
The scientists suspect that the different effects of exercise depend on the circadian rhythm. This so-called internal clock controls and synchronizes numerous body functions. This includes the sleep-wake rhythm, but also the release of hormones, the timing of regeneration phases and metabolic processes.
Since mice and humans are genetically very similar, it seems reasonable to assume that the results of the animal study can also be transferred to bipeds. But be careful: "On this basis, it is not yet possible to say whether exercise in the morning or in the evening is better," says Treebak. "We have to extend the investigation to people in order to be able to say, for example, which sports strategy is suitable for the treatment of metabolic diseases."
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