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Study looks at ways to avoid diabetes
posted 10/24/02
by Cindy Tumiel, San Antonio Express-News
San Antonio -- Exercise appears to be more powerful than dietary changes in helping overweight inner-city children improve their health and prevent diabetes, researchers have concluded.
They also found that an intensive intervention program -- consisting of parent and student education, school cafeteria changes and an after-school health club -- helped reduce blood sugar levels significantly in children already diagnosed with diabetes.
The results are based on the first year of a large-scale study involving the Bienestar program in San Antonio schools.
"My study is confirming the power of activity," said Dr. Robert Trevino, who headed the effort. "Get the kids moving -- parents, schools, community, everybody."
Bienestar has been around for some time. A pilot program has been in place in a handful of elementary schools since 1997.
Now Trevino and colleagues have a four-year federal grant to do a more extensive evaluation of their program in 27 San Antonio School District elementary schools.
They followed 1,400 fourth-graders during the 2001 school year. Most of these children were from poor neighborhoods where the prevalence of obesity and diabetes are high.
About 30 percent of the children were overweight. Forty-two children already had Type 2 diabetes, a disease in which the body does not properly metabolize insulin. This most common form of diabetes once was a disease of adults, but is now being seen increasingly in children.
Half of the 1,400 children were enrolled in Bienestar, which steps up activity levels while decreasing dietary fat and increasing fiber intake. The other half was followed to compare results.
Schools in Bienestar served lower-fat meals with more fruit and vegetables and the children participated in an after-school health club that emphasized physical activity. Both children and their parents also were educated about the role of nutrition and exercise in preventing diabetes.
At the end of the school year, researchers found that blood sugar levels did fall among children who went through Bienestar, but not by a statistically significant amount. The biggest changes came in improved physical fitness -- children in the program had lower heart rates after exercising, as well as lower body fat.
Dietary fat and fiber and caloric intake didn't correlate strongly with improved health and reduced diabetes risk, Trevino said.
Trevino noted the results mirror a national diabetes prevention study published last year, which found that exercise was a powerful element in preventing the disease in adults.
"That is the same thing we see here," he said. "The most powerful intervention for controlling diabetes is going to be physical activity. That is what this study is telling us."
But the program was also very effective among children who already had Type 2 diabetes, Trevino said.
Diabetic children who went through Bienestar saw their blood sugar levels drop by an average of 32 percent, he said.
"We had reversed their abnormal levels to normal without medications," Trevino said.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle.
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