Abstract P438: The Impact of a Yearlong Diabetes Prevention Program-based Lifestyle Intervention on Cardiovascular Health Metrics

Abstract

Introduction: The AHA created “Life’s Simple Seven” metrics to measure progress toward the goal of improving the cardiovascular (CV) health of all Americans, classifying each metric as “ideal”, “intermediate,” or “poor”. Few studies have examined the impact of behavioral lifestyle interventions on CV health metrics. We evaluated changes in CV health metrics during the course of a CDC recognized Diabetes Prevention Program-based lifestyle intervention known as Group Lifestyle Balance (DPP-GLB). Hypothesis: DPP-GLB will be associated with improvements in CV health metrics after 6 months of intervention and maintenance of these improvements at 12 months post-baseline. Methods: We used combined data from two similar intervention trials (occurring 6 years apart) offering a 12 month DPP-GLB program in the community setting to overweight/obese individuals with prediabetes and/or metabolic syndrome. Changes in individual CV health metrics (BMI, blood pressure, total cholesterol, fasting blood glucose, physical activity; measures of smoking and diet were not available) and total metric score (sum of metric profile where ideal=2, intermediate=1 and poor=0 for each metric, possible “total “range of 0-10) were considered after 6 and 12 months of intervention. Results: Among 222 participants (76%) with complete data for all 5 metrics at intervention baseline, 6 and 12 month follow up, there was a significant beneficial shift from baseline to 6 and 12 months in the proportion of participants within CV health metric categories for BMI, physical activity and blood pressure (Figure 1). Total metric score also improved significantly (p<0.01, signed-rank test) at 6 [median (IQR) change: +1.0 (0-1.0)] and 12 months [median (IQR) change: 0.0 (0-1.0)]. Significant improvement was also seen in the median number of ideal metrics at 6 and 12 months (p<0.01 for both). Conclusions: The DPP-GLB intervention was successful in improving CV health metrics at both 6 and 12 months, demonstrating the potential of this program to decrease CVD risk.