Narrator:      This is Science Today. Increasing your muscle mass is just as important as shedding body fat if you're looking to lose weight and decrease your risk for type 2 diabetes. Those were the findings of a UCLA study led by endocrinologist Preethi Srikanthan.

Srikanthan:  While it's still important to measure fat mass loss and aim for weight loss, the maintenance and perhaps even increase of muscle mass is a very important part of therapy and this can be a very positive message because it's hard to lose weight and as long as a person is able to get up, start moving, keep fit and build muscle mass, it may actually be a positive contributor to its metabolic abnormalities.

Narrator:      Their study found a correlation between higher levels of muscle mass and lower levels of insulin resistance, which is a precursor to diabetes.

Srikanthan:  We can't say that increasing your muscle mass definitely decreases your insulin resistance and your risk of pre-diabetes. However, we are able to say that there is an association there that we would like to look at in our future studies.

Narrator:      For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.