Funding outcome

This study will explore how nutrition can join forces with medication to treat obesity in adolescents and diseases associated with it. For that, adolescents with obesity and risk for diabetes (high blood sugar disease) will be randomly assigned to receive one of the three proposed treatments for 12 months: 1) diabetes medication alone; 2) dietary fiber supplementation alone; or 3) a combination of diabetes medication plus fiber supplementation. Both medication and dietary fiber alone have been shown to provide important health benefits in this population, such as weight loss and improved metabolism. Therefore, a combination of dietary fiber supplements with diabetes medication may provide even better health effects than either treatment alone. That said, to evaluate the treatments we will measure an extensive number of health-related markers, like blood exams, body weight and body fat, the sensations of hunger, satiety and quality of life, and the microbes that live in the gut. We expect the health benefits provided by the treatments will be caused in part by changes in the gut microbes, and by a comprehensive analysis of these microbes, we will discover new pathways to prevent and treat obesity in adolescents and its related diseases.