“We’re taking the CDC’s diabetes prevention program and we’re making it available to the people in Chicago."
Combining in-person meetings with digital classroom resources, the American Diabetes Association is launching the first Diabetes Prevention Program of its kind — and it’s launching it right here in Chicago with the help of HabitNu, a diabetes education app developed by Chicago-based startup, Prana Diabetes, and the South Asian Cardiovascular Center of the Advocate Heart Institute.
The Chicago DPP will be based off the National DPP, a 16-week curriculum designed by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention that aims to prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes in people diagnosed with prediabetes. Type 2 diabetes is diagnosed when the body does not properly use insulin — a hormone that allows the body to use sugar — and it can develop at any age in life. The risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases in individuals that are older, overweight, have a family history of diabetes or are not physically active, according to the CDC.
In the National DPP, participants meet weekly for two hours with lifestyle coaches who work with them on developing a healthier lifestyle through food and exercise. The curriculum developed by the CDC was backed by the research of the National Health Institute: prediabetic individuals who participated in lifestyle change-based programs reduced their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 58 percent.
But due to the weekly time commitment, the program — as it was originally designed — never took off, according to Sindhu Rajan, founder of Prana Diabetes. Drop-out rate was high, she said, which made it difficult for community centers, like the YMCA, to justify the investment in the program.
“It didn’t fit the lifestyle of the individual,” she said. “If you’re a working person, how are you going to take two hours out of every week within a 9-5 time frame?”
That's how she and her team came up with the idea for HabitNu. The app provided users with a completely digital version of the National DPP without the in-person commitment. The app has grown from its original 20 users to 500 users since last year.
But the Chicago DPP program set to launch Oct. 11 at MATTER, a Chicago healthcare startup incubator, will offer participants a hybrid experience — one that combines elements of the national program and Prana's app.
The 20 individuals who participate in the first 16-week program will only be required to attend in-person meetings once a month at MATTER, according to Erin Callahan, associate director of development at American Diabetes Association-Illinois. In the meantime, they will use HabitNu to engage in weekly online classroom sessions and interact with other members of the program via a “Facebook-style dashboard” monitored by the lifestyle coaches.
Callahan said that now is a critical time in population health to be able to take control of our own health and to prevent, stop or reverse the signs of type 2 diabetes and its complications.
“The numbers don’t lie,” Callahan said. “If current trends continue, 1 in 3 people will have [type 2] diabetes by the year 2050. In minority communities, that number jumps to 1 in 2. Those numbers have climbed significantly over the course of the last 10-20 years.”
Currently, she explained, 1 in 11 adults live with type 2 diabetes, and 1 in 3 are diagnosed with prediabetes.
Although it won’t always be free, the first 16-week program will be administered at no cost to participants. Instead, the cost, which Callahan couldn’t disclose, will be absorbed by the program partners, she said.
As of Sept. 27, Rajan said 104 individuals had taken the risk-assessment test online through dppchicago.com, the majority of whom were of European descent. She said she hopes the applicant pool will increase in diversity before the Oct. 11 start date.
“We’re taking the CDC’s diabetes prevention program and we’re making it available to the people in Chicago."
