“It is critical to understand the role of lifestyle intervention for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity,” said one of the study’s principal investigators, Mark Espeland, PhD, professor of public health sciences at Wake Forest Baptist. “Together, these two conditions nearly double one’s risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.”
The four-year study, part of the NIH’s Action for Health in Diabetes, will be led by Espeland, Kathleen Hayden, PhD, associate professor of public health sciences at Wake Forest Baptist, and José Luchsinger, MD, of Columbia University. The study will build on earlier findings that intensive lifestyle intervention in overweight older adults with diabetes was associated with a 30 percent decrease in cognitive impairment. However, this potential benefit was not firmly established, necessitating additional research.
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