Monitor on Psychology - November 2011 - (Page 21)

pessimistic and depressed. This is especially true of people who are already vulnerable, such as poor and elderly people, as well as those who live in rural areas and can’t reach service providers, Suls said. Most public health departments don’t have the funding or staff to conduct mental health outreach, interventions and assessments, and so vulnerable people often turn to drugs, alcohol and cigarettes to cope, he added. “You need programs to make sure that people don’t use the bad, unhealthy approaches to cope with their situation, but we don’t have the resources for that,” Suls said. Speaker Clayton Williams, who oversees Louisiana’s Office of Public Health, echoed Suls’s concerns. “Sustaining and enhancing investments in public health is not only smart because ... it prevents more costly and more severe problem down the road, but because they translate into investments in a community’s ability to respond and recover from a disaster,” Williams said. —S. DINGFELDER Dr. Rena R. Wing explained how the Diabetes Prevention Program is almost twice as effective as a commonly used drug. n APA presses for more funding for diabetes prevention and treatment Diabetes costs the U.S. health-care system $174 billion a year, making it a critical time to expand research on treatment and prevention, said psychologist Rena R. Wing, PhD, at a congressional briefing on the link between obesity and diabetes. Twenty-six million American children and adults have diabetes and 79 million have pre-diabetes — elevated blood glucose levels — which also puts them at risk for developing heart disease and stroke. “It’s critical that we do everything we can to maintain adequate funding for basic, clinical and translational research on these issues,” said Wing, of the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. “It’s particularly important to support the next generation of researchers so they can continue the process of discovery and implementation. You don’t want to have an intergenerational gap.” At the Sept. 15 briefing, sponsored by the Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research and co-sponsored by several of its members including APA, the American Diabetes Association and a dozen other nonprofit groups, Wing reviewed findings from the Diabetes Prevention Program study funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease (NIDDK). Wing and fellow researchers randomly assigned more than 3,000 participants with pre-diabetes to one of three conditions: moderate exercise paired with calorie reduction N OV E M B E R 2 0 1 1 • M O N I TO R O N P S YC H O L O G Y and healthy eating; taking metformin, a drug used to reduce the blood sugar level of individuals with Type-2 diabetes; or taking placebo. They followed the group over three years and found that metformin reduced people’s risk for developing diabetes by 31 percent, but the lifestyle intervention of exercise and diet reduced people’s risk by 58 percent. Now, the institute is disseminating her exercise and weight loss intervention across the country, said NIDDK Director Griffin P. Rodgers, MD, who also spoke at the briefing. “We have developed education efforts based upon this and are trying to translate these clinical studies into the community settings,” he said. “We are using the YMCA because over 60 percent of the American population lives within a six-mile radius of one.” Fellow speaker Anastasia Albanese-O’Neill, a nurse whose 9-year-old daughter, Cassidy, has Type-1 diabetes, urged lawmakers to boost support for the NIDDK, describing how her daughter’s insulin pump — developed by institute researchers — has dramatically reduced the number of finger pricks and insulin shots that would otherwise disrupt her daughter’s life. “She’s a happy kid, she is a terrific student and an all-star volleyball player,” she said. “Diabetes doesn’t define her, and that’s because of research.” —J. CHAMBERLIN 21 Lloyd Wolf

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Monitor on Psychology - November 2011

Monitor on Psychology - November 2011
Letters
President’s Column
Contents
Guest Column
‘Grand Challenges’ offers blueprint for mental health research
Documentary seeks to reach parents of LGBT kids
Treating veterans will cost at least $5 billion by 2020
Selfless volunteering might lengthen your life
Combat and stress up among U.S. military in Afghanistan
South Africa to host international psychology conference
Study uncovers a reason behind sex differences in mental illness
Navy psychologist gives a voice to combat trauma
In Brief
Psychologist suicide
On Your Behalf
Journey back to Heart Mountain
Psychology is key to pain management, report finds
ACT goes international
Judicial Notebook
Random Sample
Time Capsule
Questionnaire
Science Watch
Behavior change in 15-minute sessions?
Health-care reform 2.0
Perspective on Practice
Giving a heads up on concussion
Practice Profile
Searching for meaning
Inspiring young researchers
Aging, with grace
Public Interest
Thank you!
APA News
Division Spotlight
American Psychological Foundation
The man who gave Head Start a start
Personalities

Monitor on Psychology - November 2011