| Description |
Diabetes is a complex disease that currently affects approximately five percent of the U.S. population (Deshpande, Harris-Hayes, & Schootman, 2008). With studies suggesting that one of every three adults will be diagnosed with diabetes by the year 2050, efforts to understand relevant disease pathologies and treatment regimens have increased in recent years (Boyle, Thompson, Gregg, Barker, & Williamson, 2010; Wilcox, 2005). While drug-based therapy remains crucial to alleviating health concerns associated with diabetes, other lifestyle intervention programs, including the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), have also proven effective. The Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), which compared the medication metformin and intensive lifestyle intervention for patients with prediabetes, was shown to reduce the incidence of diabetes by 58 percent over placebo. This established DPP's effectiveness over metformin, which saw a 33 percent reduction over the placebo. The current literature review aims to explore lifestyle intervention trials from the original study to other populations, as well as to address the practicality and efficacy of DPP outside of a rigorously conducted clinical trial. By providing detail of the program through content analysis and discussing the strengths & weaknesses, alongside a reflection of the author's personal involvement, a broader understanding of the program's potential would be better highlighted. Although results from the translational studies are promising for the program's effectiveness, further research is suggested to elucidate unestablished cofounding variables. |
