Diabetes Forecast - February 2012

WE’LL
MOVE
YOU!
PreVeNtioN

of type 2 in people at high risk. “The conventional wisdom at the time was that weight loss isn’t effective” in combating type 2, says David Marrero, PhD, professor of medicine at Indiana University and a member of the Diabetes Forecast editorial board. Marrero and collaborators put together a large study (also called the Diabetes Prevention Program) to answer once and for all whether lifestyle changes could help fend off type 2. The DPP results, published in 2002, were a big success (box, right). “Lifestyle change became the most potent method to prevent or delay the onset of diabetes in high-risk people,” says Marrero. Then the question became how to bring the program to the people who need it.

effectively at a reasonable cost. The
original DPP was too expensive for
broad access, at $1,400 a year per par-
ticipant. The Y program has cut costs
dramatically by offering group classes
and by training community mem-
bers as lifestyle coaches to teach the
course. The new way of delivering
the DPP is getting results as good as
the original—at a quarter of the cost.
Plus, the coaches can bring the YDPP
to locations beyond the 47 metro area
YMCAs that now offer it. “We can
come to where you are,” says Irmina
Ulysse, the program’s director for the
YMCA of Metropolitan Washington.
“We just need 15 people and a spot.”

The Next Steps The YDPP and similar efforts are now part of a grander scheme called the National Diabetes Prevention

Success Story

Karen Robinson, 64, recently graduated from a DPP class at a local Y in the Washington, D.C., area. She signed up after her doctor said she would need to take medication for her prediabetes. “That got my attention, because the last thing I want to do is take another pill,” she says.

By the end of the four-month program, she’d reached her goal weight. The DPP gave Robinson the tools to make healthy eating decisions. “I’ve learned that when I go to my favorite restaurant a couple of times a year, to maybe get a smaller-size [crab cake] and have green beans instead of a baked potato,” she says.

The program works because it’s
logical, says DPP researcher Marrero.
“It’s not a diet. It’s a way to approach
how you eat and incorporate food and
physical activity into your life.”
The YMCA’s course, known as
the YDPP, is delivering the program

THE 7 PERCENT SOLUTION the diabetes prevention program study had people with prediabetes meet one-on-one with health care providers in clinical settings. the goal: to lose

7 percent of their body weight by changing their approach to food and exercise. the 16-week program included weekly one-hour sessions on topics such as reading food labels, dealing with stress without overeating, and increasing physical activity to 150 minutes a week. Monthly refresher sessions helped maintain results. dpp participants: