The treadmill concept is much older. In the 1800s animal-driven treadmills were used in agriculture and industry. Sometime a bit later, human-driven treadmills started to be used as punishment in the U.S. Exercise was not a common goal in a time when hard labor was common.
It wasn’t until 1952 that Drs. Bruce and Quinton introduced a treadmill to help diagnose lung problems. The treadmill gradually became popular as an exercise aid, largely with people born around the same time. The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association says the the modern fitness movement started forty years ago. That would put the movement as starting not long after the publication of the book Aerobics.

It is now widely believed that fitness can improve health. However, this has no always been the case. In the 60s and 70s, cigarettes and obesity were targeted as health problems and fitness was offered as part of the solution. Fitness gyms became more accepted and prospered in the 80s. They added treadmills and soon treadmill quality improved, and prices dropped, to the point where people started buying them for their own homes.

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Timothy Church MD led the nine-month study on 262 sedentary male and female patients with type 2 diabetes. He measured glycated hemoglobin, an accepted measure of how well diabetics have controlled their blood sugar over the past few months, with lower being better. His study has become known as the “Hart-D trial.”

“Aerobic exercise included walking on a treadmill for about 150 minutes per week at a moderate pace. Resistance training included working out three days per week with upper body, leg, abdomen, and back exercises. The combination training program included only two days of resistance training per week to keep the total exercise time consistent in all three groups. Therefore, each of the three groups spent a total of about 140 minutes in exercises weekly.

The researchers concluded that, although both aerobic and resistance training provide benefits of themselves, only the combination of the two seemed to reduced levels of glycated hemoglobin. In addition, fewer of the people in the combination exercise group needed to increase the amount of medications they required to control their disease. All three of the groups reduced their waists by 1.5 to 2.8 centimeters. Fat mass was reduced by 3 pounds in the resistance training group and 3.7 pounds in the combination training group. But only participants in the combination group were significantly more likely than those in the control group to get to the point where they could decrease hypoglycemic medications or reduce glycated hemoglobin levels.

“We really thought that the walking group and the combination group would be similar, but the combination group was the only group that had significant improvement. They reduced their [glycated hemoglobin] levels, while also reducing the amount of diabetes medications,” said Dr. Church, who is director of preventive medicine research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University System in Baton Rouge.
With obesity and the onset on type 2 diabetes rampant in the United States, the Church study holds lessens for everyone who is concerned with their health. Experts’ advice for avoiding diabetes tends to mirror that for treating it. This can be summarized as “lose weight, avoid simple carbohydrates, such as sugar and white bread, and exercise regularly.” Now this exercise can be defined as doing both aerobic exercises, as on a treadmill, and weight resistance exercises.

The Church study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Its results were published in the November 24, 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. See “Effects of Aerobic and Resistance Training on Hemoglobin A1c Levels in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes – A Randomized Controlled Trial” Church, Blair, et al.,JAMA. 2010;304(20):2253-2262. doi:10.1001/jama.2010.1710

“The new Horizon ellipticals really are different,” says Robert Braun, VP of Sales at Treadmill-World. “The pedals are lower to the ground and closer together, which makes them easier to get on and reduces stress on the hips. Perhaps even more importantly, the elliptical pattern, that circular motion made by your feet, seems closer to the natural running or walking motion that it does on most other brands.”

See the selection at Horizon Ellipticals