Project summary
To investigate the impact of two lifestyle therapies that target the lowering post meal glucose spikes on blood vessel health.
What is the issue for NSW?
Diabetes is a leading public health challenge in NSW and Australia. One in 11 people aged over 16 years in NSW has diabetes. This number is continuing to grow. Diabetes can lead to a range of health complications and frequent hospitalisation for patients. Between 2013-14 and 2018-19, there were 431,000 patients with diabetes who received inpatient care at a NSW public hospital. This is an average of 72,000 patients per year.
What does the research aim to do and how?
Dr Francois is an early career researcher who is passionate about lifestyle therapy, namely physical activity and nutrition.
Her research focuses on testing and implementing simple and feasible lifestyle strategies to improve metabolic and cardiovascular health. With the support received from NSW Health, her team will investigate and compare two lifestyle strategies that target the lowering post meal glucose spikes in order to improve blood vessel health.
The team will test the independent and combined effects of restricting carbohydrates and post-meal physical activity, to see which approach (importantly when integrated into current standard-care) can best improve cardiovascular health in patients with and at risk for diabetes.