15. February 2010 02:25
A team of Northern Arizona University-led researchers is using nearly $1.3 million in new funding from the National Institutes of Health to continue with the world's longest-running study on obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
Obesity and diabetes have been described as the major public health concerns of the 21st century, explains Leslie Schulz, executive dean of NAU's College of Health and Human Services and the study's principal investigator. "This study is taking those necessary steps toward finding a way to protect people against the development of these pervasive diseases," she says.
Schulz is being joined by researchers from the National Institutes of Health, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center and Mexico's Center for the Investigation of Nutrition and Development.
A related study already has shown that Pima Indians in Arizona—who have a diet and lifestyle similar to most Americans—have a much higher rate of diabetes than the national average: 38 percent versus 8 percent nationally, giving them the distinction of being the most diabetes-prone group in the world.
The Arizona Pima Indians have been genetically linked to a village of Pima Indians living a more traditional lifestyle in a remote, mountainous region of Mexico. A 1995 study of the Mexican Pimas revealed only a rare occurrence of diabetes. Schulz explains that the genetic similarities between the two groups of Pima Indians, along with the contrast in their lifestyles, provides an ideal setting to study the relationship between environmental circumstances and diabetes.
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