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| Milagros Rosal, PhD | |
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| Ira Ockene, MD |
A dramatic Latino soap opera depicting the emotional lives of women battling diabetes and learning how to eat healthy was a key tool in the success of UMass Medical School’s Lawrence Latino Diabetes Prevention Project, according to an article in the Saturday, Dec. 31, Worcester Telegram & Gazette.Milagros Rosal, PhD, associate professor of medicine, explained to T&G reporter Karen Nugent how she came up with the idea of filming “telenovelas” for the UMMS study, designed to teach participants how to make healthy food choices and lower their risk of diabetes.
“If a character in the telenovela refuses to try tofu, nobody watching it is going to try tofu,” said Dr. Rosal, a lead researcher for the study, who said many Latina patients are such devoted soap opera fans that they schedule their medical appointments around them. The videos were so popular during the intervention that participants were glued to their TVs, according to Rosal.
Ira Ockene, MD, the David J. and Barbara D. Milliken Professor of Preventive Cardiology and professor of medicine, said the $2.6 million clinical trial, published recently in the American Journal of Public Health, showed that a weight loss of five pounds in Latinos produced substantial reductions of pre-diabetic indicators, including insulin resistance.
“It only takes a loss of five or ten pounds in this population (Latinos) for a big increase in health benefits,” said Dr. Ockene, principal investigator.
