UMass Amherst awarded grant
to research treatment of diabetes
Barry Braun,
assistant professor of exercise science at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst, has been awarded a three-year, $410,000 grant
from the American Diabetes Association to study how combined physical
activity and drug treatment can help prevent or control
diabetes—especially in people considered most at risk of developing the
disease.
Braun says the primary aim of the research is to determine whether
adding exercise to treatment with the drug metformin is more effective
in preventing the transition from a pre-diabetic condition to Type 2
diabetes than either exercise or drug treatment alone. (Of the 17
million Americans with diabetes, 90 percent have Type 2.) Braun will
study 28 people with pre-diabetes who will exercise after receiving
metformin or a placebo.
This Junior Faculty Award from the American Diabetes Association is
designed to develop the careers of promising young faculty who are
expected to have a major impact in preventing or managing diabetes.
“The selection of professor Braun for this award indicates how highly
his work is regarded in the medical community, and it provides another
example of UMass Amherst’s growing reputation as an outstanding national
research university,” said Charlena Seymour, the university’s provost
and senior vice chancellor of academic affairs.
It is already known that physical activity is effective in controlling
blood sugar, a key to diabetes treatment. Braun’s research will evaluate
whether a modest dose of exercise—about 30 minutes of brisk walking—will
significantly boost the impact of the drug’s effectiveness. This is
important because many more people may be willing to undertake a modest
exercise regimen if it is shown that small doses of physical activity
can help control their blood sugar levels.
The effectiveness of the drug-and-exercise combination will be examined
by looking at changes in the muscle cells themselves (which control how
nutrients are used for energy); at the way sugar is taken up from blood
in response to the hormone insulin; and in a free-living situation using
a new technology that allows blood sugar to be monitored every five
minutes for up to three days. This “lab bench-to-bedside” approach will
allow Braun to probe basic cell mechanisms, study the impact of
treatment in a controlled laboratory setting, and determine if the
results are applicable to real-world situations.
In conducting this research, Braun will strengthen his collaboration
with Dr. Stuart Chipkin, former chief of the endocrine division at
Baystate Medical Center who is now a research professor of exercise
science at UMass Amherst. Chipkin will perform the muscle biopsies and
oversee the clinical medicine aspects of the study.
The majority of the studies will take place in the department of
exercise science at UMass Amherst, although Braun and his graduate
students will also travel to Boston with some of the frozen muscle
tissue to work with Dr. Laurie Goodyear, associate professor of medicine
at the Joslin Diabetes Center. Goodyear is internationally recognized
for her work on how exercise causes blood sugar to be taken up and used
by muscle cells.
July 13, 2004. Office of
News and Information
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