Ground-Breaking Research Needs Teenagers

By Natalie Verney, 28th January 2012, 06:00

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The Univeristy of Bedfordshire is calling for volunteers for a ground-breaking research project into the early prevention of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in young people.

The research study, called SIRENS is being run in collaboration with the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, and the research team are currently recruiting 14-19 year olds who are overweight according to their waist circumference.

Interested volunteers could be offered a 12 week programme of fully supervised aerobic exercise, resistance training or dietary changes to see which improves health the most.

Lead researcher Dr Catherine Kerr explained ''The reseacrh study is the first of it's kind because we're trying to find out how to prevent diseases in later life in young people that might be at slightly greater risk than others.

''The fact that we're comparing the effectiveness of two different types of exercise on improving a variety of important health measures is completely new in this group. We'll compare these exercises against nurtitional changes and are really interested in finding out which works best.

It would provide really fascinating, exciting findings and what we discover could help make important recommendations for better health and disease prevention.''

For more information  email ben.davies@beds.ac.uk or contact Catherine Kerr at catherine.kerr@beds.ac.uk