Jaimie N. Davis, Ph.D. - US grants

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Jaimie Davis received her doctorate in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin and has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow for just over 2 years in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California. Dr. Davis's immediate career goals are to 1) receive further training to become an independent investigator to compete for peer reviewed funding, specifically R01 grants;2) gain knowledge in various aspects of exercise physiology including the design and implementation of exercise interventions, and exercise testing and interpretation;3) receive further training on how to use, integrate, and score Motivational Interviewing to foster improvements in physical activity behaviors;4) investigate mechanisms that decrease metabolic risk factors with exercise interventions;and 5) educate and mentor undergraduate and graduate students in preparing them for careers in prevention and treatment of childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes. My overall long-term career goal is to develop and implement novel, effective and sustainable interventions that can be translated and delivered in high-risk minority, community settings. My training activities will involve: 1) direct mentorship of Michael Goran, Leslie Bernstein, Donna Spruijt- Metz, and Todd Schroeder and collaboration with Kathryn Schmitz and Teresa Moyer;2) attending training conferences and seminars to gain the skills and knowledge needed to complete this study;and 3) formal coursework at USC to better understand exercise physiology, fat distribution and behavioral theories. The overall goal of the proposed research project is to examine the effects of a 16-week circuit-training (strength training + aerobic activities) program, with and without a behavioral component utilizing motivational interviewing, on decreasing obesity and type 2 diabetes risk factors in 45 overweight Latina adolescent girls (14-18 years of age). This 16-week randomized control study will examine the incremental effects of the following 3 intervention groups on insulin dynamics, fat composition and distribution, and habitual and ad libitum physical activity: 1) Control group (delayed intervention), 2) Circuit training group (2 times per week), or 3) Circuit training + Motivational Interviewing group (2 times per week of CT + weekly Ml sessions). Subjects will undergo clinical testing to assess metabolic and physiological outcomes and undergo direct observations to assess ad libitum physical activity before and after intervention. Relevance. This study will develop and implement a unique circuit training (strength training + cardiovascular exercise) program, with and without a motivational interviewing behavioral component, for overweight Latina adolescent females designed to reduce obesity and type 2 diabetes risk factors. Findings from this study will help create more wide scale, multi-component, and sustaining interventions in community settings targeting obesity and metabolic disease reduction in high-risk minority communities.

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The overall goal of this project is to examine the physilogical and metabolic effects of a 16-week circuit-training (strength training + aerobic activites) program, with and without behavioral component utilizing motivational interviewing, in 45 overweight Latina adolescent girls (~14-18 years of age). We hypothesize that the circuit training intervention will reduce brest cancer biomarkers by reduing circulating hormones and ovulation frequency, and improve both insulin sensitivity and adiposity.

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The overall aim of this study is to design and test the effects of an 8-month maintenance program to extend an intensiove 16-week nutrition and exercise interventio to reduce risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes in 'high-risk'overweight minority adolescents. The highly innovative 16-week intervention study, called SANO LA (Strength and Nutrition Outcomes in Los Angeles) is currently funded by the NIH (PI: Dr Michael Goran). We are proposing a supplement to this study to extend the intervention to 1 year. The Existing 16-week intervention and proposed maintenance program will follow the modified dietary carbohydrate approach (i.e. reduce sugar &soda, increased fiber &whole grain intake) as well as a strengh training protocol, which we have previously shown in pilot studies to reduce adioposity and improve insulin and glucose dynamics in minority youth.Subjects will come to the GCRC at 1 year from the start of the original 16-week intervention for testing.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Hispanic children are disproportionately affected by obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Mounting evidence points to sugar consumption, specifically sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), as a key modifiable factor contributing to obesity and T2D. SSB are primarily sweetened with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which consists of glucose and fructose in varying proportions, and the physiological responses of HFCS on metabolic health are not fully understood. Studies elucidating the mechanism of action of how HFCS impacts metabolic health, particularly in high-risk Hispanic children, are warranted. A hypothesized link between high sugar intake and metabolic disease risk involves brain reward pathways implicated in addiction. New findings with adolescents demonstrate that frequent consumption of ice cream, independent of body fat, is associated with a reduction in reward system activity, similar to the tolerance observed in drug addiction. To date, no study has examined how SSB intake impacts brain reward and addiction pathways in children, nor assessed whether this relationship differs by frequency of SSB intake. Thus, the overall goal of this study is to examine and compare how pictures of SSB and actual SSB receipt impacts brain reward pathways, food choice, subsequent food/beverage intake, and metabolic pathways in overweight Hispanic children (7-9 y), between frequent and naive drinkers. We propose a cross-sectional study of 50 Hispanic children (7-9 y), half who are frequent SSB consumers (i.e., report e 2 SSB serv/day; n=50) and half who are na¿ve drinkers (i.e., report d 2 serv/wk; n=50). Subjects will undergo two fMRI paradigms: a food choice task in which they are presented with pictures of foods/beverages that vary in their palatability/energy density and rate the value of each item, and a probabilistic reward paradigm using SSB (sweetened with HFCS) and a tasteless control. Immediately following the scan, subjects will be exposed to an ad libitum food tray, which will include a variety of healthy and unhealthy foods/beverages. Blood will be drawn at baseline (before scan), immediately after scan, and at 10-minute intervals during ad libitum food exposure to assess glucose, insulin, and gut peptides. Satiety and fullness measures will be collected at those same time points. Specific aims are: 1) to examine and compare how exposure to pictures of energy-dense foods/beverages influence choice, value, and reward pathways (striatum, amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, insula) and examine how anticipation and receipt of SSB versus tasteless solution elicits activation of brain reward pathways between frequent and naive drinkers; and 2) to examine and compare how exposure to SSB intake in the magnet impacts subsequent acute ad libitum intake, glucose, insulin, gut peptides, and perceived satiety and hunger responses between frequent and naive drinkers. These findings will not only identify mechanisms involved in possible SSB addiction, but will also identify children most at risk for chronic sugar intake who may require more targeted interventions.

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): School gardening programs offer affordable and accessible fruits and vegetables (FV), teach children how to grow, cook, and enjoy FV, and show promising effects on reducing obesity and related diseases in low-income Hispanics. Lack of access to healthy and affordable food is a significant factor contributing to elevated rates of obesity and metabolic risk factors among low-income Hispanics. There is a growing national and grassroots movement to support gardening efforts to make healthy foods more affordable and accessible and to make intake more sustainable for low-income families. However, few experimental studies have evaluated the impact of garden-based interventions on obesity and related metabolic disorders. We recently completed an NIH R21 grant, which was a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to test the effects of a gardening, nutrition, and cooking program in 375 low-income Hispanic students living in Los Angeles. Preliminary results from this study show that intervention compared to the control students have reductions in BMI parameters and waist circumference, increases in daily intake of dietary fiber and vegetables, and improved lipid profiles. We want to expand and replicate this study by: a) using a cluster randomized school design; b) implementing the program during school hours; c) increasing sample size; d) lengthening the intervention period to one school year; e) collecting comprehensive metabolic measurements on the child; f) enhancing family workshops; g) collecting more parental data; and h) developing and evaluating sustainability strategies. Thus, the overall goal of this project is to test the effects of a large school-based gardening, nutrition, and cooking RCT (called Sprouts) on dietary intake, dietary-related behaviors, obesity, and related metabolic disorders in low-income Hispanic youth and their families in Central Texas. Sixteen elementary schools will be randomized to either: 1) Sprouts intervention or 2) Control (delayed intervention). At each intervention school, we will build edible gardens; form and train Garden Leadership Coalitions (GLCs); teach 20 Sprouts in-school lessons to the students; and teach nine family-based Sprouts lessons throughout school year. The following measures will be obtained for students at baseline and post-intervention: height, weight, BMI, waist circumference, body composition (via bioimpedance), blood pressure, glucose, insulin, and lipids (via voluntary fasting blood draws), dietary intake, and related psychosocial behaviors (e.g., preference/motivation/self-efficacy to eat FV). We will also measure anthropometrics, dietary intake, and related dietary psychosocial variables on the parents at baseline and post-intervention. After the intervention year, we will provide a series of training workshops and resources to the GLCs and schoolteachers to sustain the Sprouts program in subsequent years. We will measure the sustainability employed by each school by process logs/surveys, structured interviews, and school observations. The findings could provide a successful, sustainable model for garden- based school programs that decrease the obesity and metabolic diseases impacting Hispanic populations.