CHENNAI: With the entire South Asia facing a diabetes epidemic and the threat of having highest number of cardio vascular diseases in the next 30 years, diabetologists are proposing a low cost community based intervention programme to prevent diabetes. Termed as The Diabetes Community Lifestyle Improvement Program (D-CLIP), diabetologists claim the model a success after initial research was conducted in three cities, including Karachi, Chennai and New Delhi.Dr V Mohan and Dr K M Venkat Narayan of Global Diabetes Research Centre, a collaboration between Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) in Chennai and Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University in Atalanta, USA, disclosed some of the findings of the study, which is half way through now.The lifestyle intervention trial, funded by International Diabetes Federation (IDF) under the BriDGES translational research grant programme, and Eli Lilly, to prevent Type 2 diabetes has developed a curriculum preventing diabetes in real life settings with community participants.More than 19,000 people were screened for the trials, which are still on since it began two years ago. They include pre-diabetic overweight people aged between 20-65 years. Of these, 1,253 people were zeroed in and from there, 600 people were randomly selected in Chennai, said Dr Mohan.The people were enrolled in six-month D-CLIP classes which had a structured curriculum that focused on reading food labels, 150 minutes of physical activities a week, education on nutrition besides weight reduction, he added.Of the 200 people who completed the course, 83 per cent have lost weight from 2.5kg to 6kg in four months, said Dr Mohan.Currently, the 17th D-CLIP classes are on and the 13th group will be graduating soon, he said.The data from the study will be used to design and implement scalable, low coast, cultural specific lifestyle intervention for the prevention of diabetes in South Asia. Lifestyle interventions are programmes that seek to prevent disease by promoting changes in health behaviours, improved diet, increased physical activity and weight loss. The results of this program will be used to make policy and public health recommendations, which will result in broader diabetes prevention efforts, he said.Dr Venkat Narayan, Ruth and OC Hubert Professor of Global Health and Epidemiology at Emory, stressed the need to invest in research more to develop young people in arresting diabetes.
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