Henry Pownall, Ph.D., the new director of atherosclerosis and lipoprotein research at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, recently coauthored a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association investigating how intensive lifestyle changes affect type 2 diabetes in overweight adults (Gregg et al. Association of an intensive lifestyle intervention with remission of type 2 diabetes. JAMA. 2012 Dec 19;308(23):2489-96).
The research team, led by Edward Gregg, Ph.D., acting director of the CDC’s Division of Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, and Wake Forest School of Medicine diabetes epidemiologist Alain Bertoni, M.D., found that intensive lifestyle changes — including increases in physical activity, decreases in caloric intake, counseling, and education — during a 4-year period were more likely to result in complete or partial remission of type-2 diabetes symptoms compared to adults who received only diabetes support and education. Overall, patients who underwent intensive lifestyle changes yielded 7.9% greater weight loss than the control group and were 15.4% more fit. Among the lifestyle intervention group, 9.2% experienced remission of type-2 diabetes for at least 2 years, 6.4% for at least 3 years, and 3.5% for 4 years. The control group saw 2% remission or less over this same period. The researchers called long-term remission rates for the intervention group “modest.” The study was part of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases-funded Look AHEAD project.