Type 2 diabetes is increasing in adults and young people. In people over age 65, combined prevalence of prediabetes and diabetes is greater than 50 percent. Although type 2 diabetes had been rare in youth, the disease is becoming more common with the rise of childhood obesity.

The Keck School of Medicine is looking for volunteers to take part in the BetaFat Study, a clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to improve and preserve the production of insulin in people with prediabetes or recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes. Participants must have prediabetes or have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within the past year.

"People with prediabetes, whose blood glucose levels are slightly above normal, and people with recently diagnosed diabetes all tend to get worse over time."

“The main reason is that they make less and less insulin, which makes their blood glucose harder and harder to normalize. In the BetaFat Study we’re comparing weight loss through gastric banding surgery to standard treatment with the medication, metformin, to see which is better for preventing worsening of insulin levels over time," said Tom Buchanan, MD, chief, Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes, associate dean for clinical research at the Keck School of Medicine, and director of SC CTSI.

Read more on KECK.USC.edu