Although diet, exercise and weight loss are recommended by many national organizations, no clinical trials have shown a significant reduction in cardiovascular events due specifically to weight loss.

We are finding that inflammation of the fat tissue causes both diabetes and heart attacks, said Dr. Christie Ballantyne, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at the Methodist DeBakey Heart Center. This study will examine how diet, exercise and weight loss affect inflammation, and how these changes affect the health of the patient's heart.

The Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) study is a large multi-center trial designed to examine whether weight loss through intensive lifestyle intervention with diet and exercise will reduce cardiovascular events in obese diabetic individuals compared with a control group that receives diabetes support and education .

As part of the Look AHEAD study, researchers nationwide will follow 5,000 people who are overweight and have diabetes -- both conditions that lead to inflammation of fatty tissue. All patients will be educated in how to change certain lifestyle habits, adding diet or exercise to their daily routines.

We are looking at how each intervention works for each person, how diet or exercise affect the fat tissue, said Ballantyne, who is principal investigator for the study at Methodist. That will then show us how these interventions affect the heart.

Previous studies showed that as people lost weight and maintained the loss, there was a decrease in inflammation.

These findings will lead to better ways of treating people at risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular events. Ballantyne said.

For more information on the Methodist DeBakey Heart Center, see debakeyheartcenter.

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There were three key findings from the study first, the benefit of switching to a healthy lifestyle past age 45 became evident even in the 4-year, short-term follow up; second, the beneficial impact of the changes occurred despite the relatively modest changes in health habits; and third, the healthy lifestyle was beneficial when compared to all persons with three or fewer healthy habits, not just in comparison to people with none or one habit. People adopting only three healthy habits experienced lower mortality but not fewer CVD events over the same period.

The authors found that only 8.5% of middle-aged adults practice these four behaviors and only 8.4% newly adopt such a lifestyle past age 45. Further, men, African-Americans, and individuals with less than college education, lower income, or a history of hypertension or diabetes are less likely to adopt a healthy lifestyle past age 45, and are therefore at greater risk of mortality and cardiovascular disease.

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