Effectiveness of nutrition and physical activity interventions in women with impaired fasting glucose: A randomized controlled trial in the community

This study aimed to determine whether regular telephone calls to remind not to consume high glycemic index food and regular physical activity to improve impaired fasting glucose (IFG) in Turkish women aged 30-65 years.The participants were indentified in a cardiovascular risk factor survey in İzmir (Balçova?s Heart Study). Women who had fasting blood glucose between 100-125 mg/dl were randomized into two groups. All intervention (n=117) and control (n=99) groups took a seminar on healthy eating and physical activity. Intervention group were motivated by reminding charts that were designed colours adopted from the traffic lights. Red light meant consumption of high glycemic food everyday, yellow 1-6 times, green none. For physical activity, red meant none, yellow 1-4 times and green 5 times a week. Women in the intervention group were called weekly by the researcher (SY) and asked their total number of colour codes each week during the following 3 months.In total, 32 intervention and 17 controls responded to the last visit. Both intervention and control groups were similar regarding age (p=0.66), fasting plasma glucose (p=0.39), BMI (p=0.25), WHR (p=0.64), menopause (p=0.16) and dietary behaviours (p>0.05) at baseline.In the intervention group, the number of green colour code for nutrition decreased (from 16.2 ±4.1 to 15.1±3.7, p=0.03) but the number of green colour code for activity was not changed significantly (from 0.5 ±0.7 to 0.4±0.7, p=0.25) in the third month.At the third month fasting blood glucose was higher in the intervention group (117.0±25.8) than control group (109.5±9.2) (p=0.69).In our study, simple regular telephone calls were not sufficient to motivate the study participants to stay in the study and to take dietary and physical activity advices. Methods such as regular home and shopping visits or active seminars many increase the compliance of the participants.Key words: Impaired fasting glucose, intervention, glycemic index, physical activity