Background and Objective: Type 2 diabetes is a major public health problem with increasing morbidity and mortality. Complementary therapies are widely used by the people with diabetes. Massage therapy (MT) is an increasingly popular complementary therapy. Since few studies have been conducted on the effect of MT on people with diabetes, we aimed to investigate the effect of massage therapy on glycemic control (FBS, HBA1C) in women with diabetes.

  Material and Methods: this clinical trial was conducted on fifty women with type 2 diabetes selected by convenience sampling and placed randomly in treatment and control groups. The test group received 30 mins-long massage therapies in a week (10 sessions) and the control group received just standard care. Glycemic control indices including HbA1C, FBS were measured at baseline, after 10 weeks of therapy and then analyzed by paired-t test and MANOVA (p≤ 0.05) .

  Results: the mean and standard deviation of HBA1C of massage group (7.18±0.14) was significantly (P < 0.01) different from control (8.06±0.22) and the difference of FBS in massage group (1.46±5.28) from control (1.6±4.87) was meaningful statistically (P < 0.05).

  Conclusion: accordingly, massage therapy can be useful for glycemic control (FBS, HBA1C) in women with type 2 diabetes.