My career goals are focused upon two concurrent diseases, childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus,affecting prominently adolescents of minority groups. Identifying new etiopathogenic mechanisms thatexplain the racial disparity and the potential influence of racial and lifestyle factors on predicting treatmentoutcomes are my long-term goals. With this focus, I am commited to patient-oriented translational researchbut I need to acquire specific skills that allow me to be more effective in this area. This award will allow meto accomplish these goals in the following way. I will: 1) enhance my statistical and epidemiologicalfoundation; 2) develop skills in methodology, measurements, and analysis of epidemiological data; 3)develop the neccesary knowledge in preventive medicine, pharmacoepidemiology and bioinformaticsnecessary for implementing interventional studies based on the experience gained in my training and the)reliminary results of the proposed project. In obese African American (AA) subjects, we have proposed thatncreased GLP-1 levels [marker of enteroinsular axis activity (EIA) ] could promote adipogenesis and the:levelopment of comorbidities. It is still unclear whether these racial differences in EIA are determined byage, severity of overweight, differences in cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) or autonomic nervous system(ANS) modulation. We will assess these three interrelated areas (EIA, CRF, and ANS modulation) in a bi-racial sample of wide-ranging overweight adolescents. In particular, we are interested in the relationbetween EIA activity and insulin dynamics as a potential mechanistic pathway to explain the increasedprevalence of obesity, type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) and Cardiovascular Disease (CVD)in AA youth.ITherefore, we will determine the associations among EIA, CRF, glucose homeostasis, and risk factors forICVD in adolescents. The results of this study can be translated into medical practice changes and may helpto implement a more physiologically effective approach to obesity treatment in AA adolescents, in particular.
| Lee, Shirleatha; Cowan, Patricia Ann; Velasquez-Mieyer, Pedro (2012) A pilot study of QT interval analysis in overweight and obese youth. Appl Nurs Res 25:218-21 |
