Women with type 2 diabetes perceive harder effort during exercise than nondiabetic women.

Regular exercise is a cornerstone of diabetes treatment; however, people with type 2 diabetes (T2D) are commonly sedentary. It is possible that a harder rate of perceived exertion (RPE) during exercise for those with T2D as compared with nondiabetics may be a barrier to physical activity. This study examined RPE (Borg scale, ordinal range 6-20) during submaximal exercise at identical absolute work rates to test the hypothesis that women with T2D demonstrate harder RPE during exercise than nondiabetic controls.