Article Text

Outcome of lifestyle intervention in relation to duration of pre-diabetes: the Pathobiology and Reversibility of Prediabetes in a Biracial Cohort (PROP-ABC) study

Abstract

Introduction In studies that enrolled people with prevalent pre-diabetes of unknown duration, lifestyle intervention (LI) delayed progression to type 2 diabetes (T2D) but did not reverse pre-diabetes in most participants. Here, we assessed the effects of LI among individuals with pre-diabetes of known duration to determine whether outcomes are related to duration of pre-diabetes.

Research design and methods The Pathobiology and Reversibility of Prediabetes in a Biracial Cohort study initiated LI in subjects with incident pre-diabetes during follow-up of initially normoglycemic African Americans and European Americans with parental T2D. Participants were stratified into those initiating LI after <3, 3–5, or >5 years of pre-diabetes diagnosis. Assessments included anthropometry, body fat, fasting and 2-hour plasma glucose (FPG, 2hPG), and insulin sensitivity and secretion. The outcomes were normal glucose regulation (NGR; ie, normal FPG and 2hPG), persistent pre-diabetes, or T2D. Participants who maintained normal FPG and normal 2hPG levels during follow-up served as the control. The control subjects did not receive lifestyle or other intervention to alter the course of glycemia or body weight.

Results Of 223 participants (age 53.3±9.28 years, body mass index 30.6±6.70 kg/m2), 72 (control) maintained normoglycemia during follow-up and 138 subjects with incident pre-diabetes initiated LI after 4.08±2.02 years (range 3 months–8.3 years) of diagnosis. Compared with control, LI participants showed decrease in glucose, weight, and body fat; 42.8% reverted to NGR, 50% had persistent pre-diabetes, and 7.2% developed T2D after 5 years. These outcomes were similar across race and pre-diabetes duration strata, but greater glycemic decrease occurred when LI was initiated within 5 years of pre-diabetes diagnosis.

Conclusions Ninety-three per cent of adults with parental T2D who initiated LI within 3 months to 8.3 years of developing pre-diabetes did not progress to T2D; nearly half reverted to NGR.

Trial registration number NCT02027571.

  • prediabetic state
  • ethnic groups
  • diet
  • exercise

Data availability statement

Data are available upon reasonable request. De-identified data from this report are available for sharing upon reasonable request.

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This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

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