Brief Exercise and Diabetes As part of a study, sixteen young men performed high-intensity exercise that totaled only 15 minutes in a two-week period.
At the end of two weeks, several (but not all) tests for diabetes, such as an insulin sensitivity test, showed improvement.
Do these results indicate that brief, high intensity exercise causes an improvement in markers for diabetes?
What essential component of both controlled experiments and observational studies is missing from this study?
(Source: Babraj et al., Extremely short duration high intensity interval training substantially improves insulin action in young healthy males, BMC Endocrine Disorders, vol. 9: 3doi: 10.1186/1472-6823-9-3, January 2009)