Type 2 Diabetes Subgroups, Risk for Complications, and Differential Effects Due to an Intensive Lifestyle Intervention
<b>Objective:</b> We re-evaluated the Action for Health in Diabetes (Look AHEAD) intervention, incorporating diabetes subgroups, to identify whether intensive lifestyle intervention (ILI) is associated with differential risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) by diabetes subgroup. <p><b>Research Design and Methods: </b>Look AHEAD randomized 5145 participants, aged 45-76 years, with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and overweight or obesity, to 10 years of ILI or a control condition of diabetes support and education. ILI focused on weight loss through decreased caloric intake and increased physical activity. To characterize diabetes subgroups, we applied k-means clustering to data for age of diabetes diagnosis, body mass index, waist circumference, and glycated hemoglobin. We examined whether relative intervention effects on the trial’s prespecified CVD outcomes varied among diabetes subgroups.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> We characterized four subgroups related to older age at diabetes onset (42% of sample), poor glycemic control (14%), severe obesity (24%), and younger age at onset (20%). We observed interactions (all p<0.05) between intervention and diabetes subgroup for three separate composite cardiovascular outcomes. Randomization to ILI was associated with increased risk for each cardiovascular outcome only among the poor glucose control subgroup (hazard ratios, HR >1.32). Among the three other diabetes subgroups, ILI was not associated with increased risk for CVD.</p> <p><b>Conclusion:</b> Among overweight and obese adults with T2D, a lifestyle intervention was associated with differential risk for CVD that was dependent on diabetes subgroup. Diabetes subgroups may be important to identify the patients who would achieve benefit and avoid harm from an intensive lifestyle intervention.</p>