Lifestyle Medicine Research

Position Paper on Type 2 Diabetes



New Research Briefs on COVID-19



Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown on Lifestyle Behaviors in Children with Obesity Living in Verona, Italy: A Longitudinal Study


Presenting Characteristics, Comorbidities, and Outcomes Among 5700 Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19 in the New York City Area


COVID-19 in adult patients with pre-existing chronic cardiac, respiratory and metabolic disease: a critical literature review with clinical recommendations


Effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on human sleep and rest-activity rhythms

Current Research Projects  Updated: December 4, 2020

Expert Consensus Statement on Dietary Interventions to Treat Type 2 Diabetes

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Expert Consensus Statement on Dietary Interventions to Treat Type 2 Diabetes

Funder: Lisa Wendel Memorial Foundation

Multi-organizational collaboration effort to develop an expert consensus paper discussing the most effective diet to treat type 2 diabetes with a goal of remission. Methodology involves 10-20 expert panel members from ACLM and collaborating organizations who have designated official representatives in this process. The group meets multiple times, following a voting process by panel members to assess agreement on specific statements. Currently have had second group meeting and 120 statements are in process with voting. Manuscript should be submitted to a journal in mid-2021. 

Project Leadership

Name

Chair

Rich Rosenfeld, MD, MPH, MBA

Assistant Chair

John Kelly, MD, MPH

Research Committee Representative

Deepa Sannidhi, MD

Staff Liason and Project Coordinator

Micaela Karlsen, PhD, MSPH

External Consultant in Methods

Lorraine Nnacheta, DrPH, MPH

Collaborating Organizations

Designated Representative

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND)

Lorraine Weatherspoon, PhD, RDN member representative, with Deepa Handu, PhD, RDN, LDN, Sr. Director of the Evidence Analysis Center observing

American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE)

Monica Agarwal, MD, MEHP, FACE

American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP)

Denee Moore, MD

Endocrine Society (ES)

Amy Rothberg, MD, PhD

American Heart Association (AHA)

Trudy Gaillard, MD

American College of Cardiology (ACC)

Karen Aspry, MD, MS, FACC

ACLM Member-Interest Group Affiliations

ACLM Member

Dietitians

Brenda Davis, RD

Physicians

George Guthrie, MD, MPH, CDE, CNS, FAAFP, FACLM

Physicians

Ted Barnett, MD

Pharmacists

Denise Fields, PharmD, BC-ADM, FASHP

Endocrinologist

Mahima Gulati, MD, MSc

Physicians

Gunadhar Panigrahi, MD, FACC

Adapting the Full Plate Diet Program for an African-American Audience

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Adapting the Full Plate Diet Program for an African-American Audience

Funder: Aardmore Institute of Health

The Full Plate Diet program has been successfully used in a variety of settings to support adults in shifting towards a more high-fiber, plant-predominant diet, and has been successfully adapted at Loma Linda specifically for a Latino population. This project aims to further revise the curriculum and materials for relevance to an African-American population.  Current status is that program matetials have undergone one major revision based on group feedback, and two specific churches, Jordan River Ministries (Washington, DC) and Lehigh Seventh Day Adventist Church (Lehigh, FL), committed to engage with focus groups for more group input on materials  in January, 2021, with a virtual session of the program set to run at both churches in February, 2021. 

Project Leadership

Name

Principal Investigator & Staff Coordinator

Micaela Karlsen, PhD, MSPH

Member Consultant and Program Facilitator

Theresa Stone, MD

Member Consultant and Program Facilitator

Loureen Downes, Ph.D., APRN, FNP-BC, Diplomate- ACLM, FAANP

Member Consultant and Program Facilitator

Marsha-Gail Davis, MD

Member Consultant and Program Facilitator

Jasmol Sardana, DO, FACLM, DipABLM

Member Consultant and Program Facilitator

Monique Rainford, MD

Staff Consultant

Monica Black Robinson, MA

Evidence Review of Plant-Based Diets and Health Benefits

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Evidence Review of Plant-Based Diets and Health Benefits

Funder: Kate Farms

The benefits of more plant-based diets are widely accepted, and new research is published frequently. However, the public, policy and decision makers, healthcare providers, and payers still remain largely unaware of the power of plant-based diets to create health. The objective of this project is to create a curated list of recent and seminal research on plant-based diets, and to create a consumer-facing report and slide deck appropriate for medical professionals’ use. Formal searches and screening have returned close to 600 unique publications. Data extraction and report generation are in process for the following specific topics:

• Support for plant-based diets from other relevant medical professional societies / mainstream recommendations summary
• Dietary quality (will answer common questions about protein, B12, D)
• Enteral nutrition
• Children’s diets and chronic disease
• Overweight/obesity, metabolic syndrome, weight loss, and healthy weight maintenance
• Type 2 diabetes
• Cardiovascular disease and risk factors (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stroke, events and mortality, erectile dysfunction)
• Reproductive cancers (breast and prostate)
• Autoimmune conditions
• Chronic kidney disease
• Malnutrition 
• Longevity and quality of life-years (QALYs) (can address quality aging)
• Athletics and sports nutrition

 

Clinicians who practice Lifestyle Medicine report that lifestyle changes achieve substantial benefits for individuals diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, including the normalization of blood glucose without the use of medication. As a key component of an upcoming campaign to build awareness for the power of Lifestyle Medicine in treating and sometimes reversing type 2 diabetes, ACLM’s Type 2 Diabetes Remission Task Force is soliciting case reports for a series collection on this outcome and to explore commonalities across practitioners. This research study has been approved by the University of New England's IRB.

Click here to submit your case report

Inclusion Criteria
Cases will be included if they meet the following criteria:
  - Previously diagnosed type 2 diabetes, with diagnostic criteria of:
  - HbA1c >6.5%
  - FSG >126mg/dL and above on more than one occasion

Reversal of type 2 diabetes through lifestyle modification, defined by:
  - Have achieved HbA1c <6.1% after being off anti-diabetes medications for ≥3 months
  - Have achieved FSG of <110mg/dL after being off anti-diabetes medications for ≥3 months

Additionally,
  - Practitioner must complete the Practitioner Informed Consent Form
  - Patient must sign the Patient Informed Consent Form and Practitioner must maintain a copy in their files
 
What data is collected? You can review the data requested in the Patient Data Collection Form .

For questions on this case series, please contact ACLM Research Director Dr. Micaela Karlsen at mkarlsen@lifestylemedicine.org.

Click here to submit your case report

Thank you for helping us build this critical evidence base!


Research in Planning Stage

Type 2 diabetes remission demonstration project in Ogden, UT
Collaboration with ACLM physician, local public health department, local medical clinics serving small, low-SES neighborhood with primarily Hispanic population, initial intensive intervention with education and provided food to achieve T2D remission, with long-term community support and follow-up to create a culture of health demonstration project. 

Systematic Review of Dietary Guidelines
Systematic review of dietary guidelines issued by government bodies and other major stakeholders / health professional associations to find commonalities across guidelines and showcase the widespread, mainstream acceptance and guidance for foundational nutrition messages, such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and avoiding processed meat and added sodium. 

Healthcare Cost Analysis of Prior Educational Intervention
Previous brief nutrition education intervention given to 500 Medicare-Gap coverage employees. Company now has 3 years of post-intervention healthcare cost data and matched comparison group. 

Healthcare Cost Analysis of Prior CHIP Intervention
Previous CHIP program delivered to employees, with health outcomes and healthcare costs following intervention for 2+ years.  

Provider Well-Being Following LM Education
Assessment of provider burnout levels and well-being, comparing pre-LM training and post among providers with no prior experience in LM.