Summaries of Must-Read Clinical Literature, Guidelines, and FDA Actions
Preventing T2D Through Lifestyle Change Programs
Diabetes Care; ePub 2017 Jul 21; Ely, et al
Widespread implementation of a lifestyle change program to prevent type 2 diabetes (T2D) has shown promising results during its first 4 years, with greater duration and intensity of session attendance resulting in a higher percent of body weight loss overall, a recent study found. The study performed an analysis from data on 14,747 adults enrolled in year-long T2D prevention programs from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Diabetes Prevention Program (National DPP) from February 2012 through January 2016. Researchers found:
- Participants attended an average of 14 sessions over an average of 172 days in the program.
- 35.5% of participants achieved the 5% weight loss goal.
- Participants reported a weekly average of 152 minutes of physical activity, with 41.8% meeting the physical activity goal of 150 minutes per week.
- Participants lost 0.3% of body weight for every additional session attended and every 30 minutes of activity reported.
Ely EK, Gruss SM, Luman ET, et al. A national effort to prevent type 2 diabetes: Participant-level evaluation of CDC’s National Diabetes Prevention Program. [Published online ahead of print July 21, 2017]. Diabetes Care. doi:10.2337/dc16-2099.
86 million Americans have prediabetes and are at heightened risk of developing diabetes. In a trial that looked at over 3,000 individuals with prediabetes, the National Diabetes Prevention Program showed that a multi-component lifestyle intervention program with a large number of sessions over a year, combined with a targeted weight loss goal of 5% to 7% and an exercise goal of 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week, decreased the number of people going on to develop diabetes compared to usual care by about two-thirds.1 Based on these results and the increasing epidemic of diabetes, the CDC developed and implemented the National DPP to disseminate this program broadly across the population. The program consists of a minimum of 22 sessions over the year, with 16 hourly sessions at weekly intervals during the first 6 months, and then 6 monthly sessions during the subsequent 6 months. This study, which reports on the first 4 years of the widespread implementation of this program, shows that the program works not only in a research setting like that of the DPP, but also in the real-world setting in which the CDC has rolled out the program. These programs are excellent, worthwhile resources to which we can refer motivated patients with prediabetes. —Neil Skolnik, MD