Study challenges diabetes meds, favors lifestyle changes

Pitt researchers, along with others nationwide, found that basic lifestyle changes can reduce… Pitt researchers, along with others nationwide, found that basic lifestyle changes can reduce diabetes symptoms in adults more effectively than diabetes-related drugs.

Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health recently finished a 10-year study called the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study, a nationwide effort funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

According to the study, recently published on TheLancet.com, adults who committed to “intensive lifestyle changes” to lose weight delayed the onset of Type 2 diabetes by about four years, compared to two years by those who took the preventative drug Metformin.

Some of these changes included 150 minutes of exercise per week and eating foods with less fat and calories.

The American Diabetes Association estimates that 23.6 million children and adults have the disease and that 57 million people have pre-diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes makes up between 90 and 95 percent of the cases, according to the association. Type 2 diabetes can appear in younger adults, but it occurs more frequently with increasing age.

Elizabeth Venditti, director of the Lifestyle Resource Core for the study and assistant professor of psychiatry at Pitt, said the results were somewhat expected but show the importance of having healthy habits.

“It may seem like losing a bit of weight and trying to exercise 150 minutes per week for your life isn’t that hard,” Venditti said. “That seems pretty distant to a college student, but rates of people with Type 2 diabetes used to only consist of adults. That’s not the case anymore.”

Venditti said Type 2 diabetes symptoms continue to manifest in younger adults, attributing the change to an increase in obesity among children and young adults.

“The heavier and more sedentary our students become, the more the disease keeps appearing in younger people,” Venditti added.

She also said college students should “take heed of the results” if they have a family history of the disease.

“Even if you’re not overweight and eat healthy, people with a family history of the disease or those who are African-American, Hispanic American, Native American or Pacific Islander have a disproportionately higher rate,” Venditti said.

Researchers said they’d like to offer a course credit program to teach college students about behavioral lifestyle decisions. The program would serve as a place for at-risk students to go if they wanted guidance on losing weight, eating healthy and being physically active in college and in the future.

“Weight has a way of creeping up on you, and not everyone likes to play pickup basketball or running on a treadmill,” Venditti said. “You have to find what you really enjoy. Some adults need help figuring this stuff out. We want to help people be active so they’re not sitting behind a computer all day.”