Wednesday, November 30, 2011

It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A….!



Really…you want to order that extra-large fries? Why not buy a YMCA membership instead? It’ll probably be more worth your while considering the skyrocketing number of people that have pre-diabetes these days. What is that huge number you ask – well, it’s over 60 million Americans! YES, you read it right. 60 million. That also means 60 million people who are at risk of a heart attack, stroke, blindness or other obesity-related health problems.

The YMCA is doing something great - it has partnered up with Indiana University School of Medicine to deploy a real-world adaptation of the Diabetes Prevention Program. The YMCA’s Diabetes Prevention Program is meant to help people learn about and adopt healthy eating and exercise habits that have been proven to reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.  The program gives people with pre-diabetes support and encouragement from both a trained lifestyle coach, and fellow classmates to develop a plan for improving and maintaining overall well-being.

To potentially be eligible to join this program, one should have a body mass index higher than 24, more than 2 diabetes risk factors (which include age, personal history, family history, race and ethnicity, weight and waist measurement, smoking, physical activity, diet and alcohol consumption) and a blood glucose level within a specified range. 6 months after the pilot program was deployed, it was found that the 92 participants, who were more often woman of non-white race, had lost 5.7 kgs on average compared to only 1.8 kgs in control participants. Cholesterol levels of participants also dropped significantly compared to the control group. These differences were sustained for 12 months.

What are some things you should take away from this pilot program?
1)   Lifestyle modification is very effective to prevent or delay the onset of diabetes. People at high risk for developing diabetes were able to achieve and maintain a reduction in body weight and a significant reduction in total cholesterol levels.
2)   The YMCA is a great place for wide-scale spread of this low-cost approach to lifestyle diabetes prevention! Soon this program may be offered at a YMCA near you. So keep your eye out for it. Go ahead, get involved, and improve your health today!

Quote from an expert:
"We are leveraging our national health care resources, the YMCA's and Walgreens' presence in local communities, our combined wellness expertise and the experience of two innovative, proven pilot programs to help people make lifestyle changes to prevent or control diabetes."
-Stephen Hemsley, president and CEO of UnitedHealth Group


Rita Wakim, MA., is interested in diabetes research: prevention and health outcomes. She is currently working towards a doctoral degree in Health Policy and Management at Emory University.
                                    
Reference:
Ronald T. Ackermann, MD, et al " Translating the Diabetes Prevention Program into
the Community The DEPLOY Pilot Study." American Journal of Preventive Medicine (2008): 357-363.


5 comments:

  1. I liked your funny picture at the beginning and your title (it was a good hook for readers).

    For people with no science background, it might be useful to define terms like pre-diabetes and "control group." I would also spell out "kilograms" instead of saying "kgs."

    You say what "potential risk factors" were considered (...age, personal history, family history, weight and waist measurement, etc.) but did not specify what range/category of these risk variables contributes risk. This isn't super important, but I would have been interested to know (for instance) what age range they consider as conferring risk/that would affect eligibility for the program.

    Typo - "who were more often woman of non-white race" should say "who were more often women of non-white race"

    How much of a change in cholesterol was there?

    I thought the quote from an expert could have been incorporated into your blog post better/more naturally; it seemed a bit strange just having "Quote from an expert" as its own paragraph with no lead-in.

    Overall, interesting and relevant topic.

    -Cassie G.

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  2. Definitely catchy picture and title -- very appropriate for a blog! Your tone started off very conversational (perfect for this type of thing!), then slipped into something more academic when talking about the inclusion criteria for the study. Most lay people don't care about that stuff -- they want to know more about what they should do. How might you reframe your "what should you do" pieces to sound more action-oriented for a lay audience? "Lifestyle modification" is really vague -- what specifically should I modify to make a difference? (i.e., what does that look like in my life?)

    Last, consider our metrics when writing if you're going to include it -- most Americans have no concept of a kilogram -- translate that into pounds.

    Again -- I really liked the tone at the beginning. Very friendly and easy to read. Tap into that next time you have to write something like this. : )

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  3. Interesting! I like your tone in the beginning too! It's really like a friend chatting with me! However, it makes me spending much more energy to read the following article because some academic styles.

    I have a question about the content. Do the program provided by YMCA free? If it is not free, how poor people can utilize it? We know more poor people have obese problems than the rich people. So, it is my concern about the accessibility.

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  4. Thank you for this interesting post.

    I also was drawn in by the picture. It really brings the issue to life. Because of the picture, I was expecting some discussion related to children. You said that the program considered risk factors, and one of them was age. Given the criteria, would any young people be eligible to participate? Would this boy be able to participate? If not, do you know if there are programs similar in style and content to this one for kids?

    Thanks for teaching me about your area of interest?

    Bethany

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  5. This article is quite honest. There is no sugar-coating the issue of obesity, here. (Pun intended.)

    As previously mentioned, however, the picture of the child is contrasted by the current parameters of the program, which I'm guessing have inclusion criteria of 18+? More details as far as ELEVATED "glucose range" due to over-consumption (etc) or short, reasoned explanations might be helpful, too. (Just make sure to explain your terminology!) Sometimes listing facts makes things easy to forget or skim over. By explaining a bit, it could help to drive the message home and leave me feeling like I learned something about the topic and myself. Further, it seems you could utilize images a bit more: Lifestyle modification, such as downsizing and cutting back on those XL fries etc with concrete, visual examples might be entertaining.

    Great topic, though! I know they've had great success with DPP stuff, mention it? You're a fantastically readable writer and I'd just like a bit more here. Well done!


    BSHE kid

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