Diabetes and Nutrition

The Waikato District Health Board has a regional diabetes service which provides care for more than 20,000 patients with diabetes. We have worked in conjunction with both general practice and the diabetes service to try and help improve care for people with diabetes.

Currently, we have a number of projects underway led primarily by Dr Lynne Chepulis and Dr Ryan Paul, including:

1. Evaluating screening for diabetes in pregnancy in the Waikato region
2. Exploring how diabetes is managed in primary care
3. Characterising at-risk patients who require secondary care intervention
4. Improving outcomes for patients with diabetes through early intervention
5. Understanding how glycaemic control changes across the lifespan in patients with either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes.

We have also recently completed a study that evaluated changes in the gut microbiome in women with gestational diabetes during pregnancy, and have reported on key clinical outcomes such as management of blood glucose levels during hospitalisation and use of steroids to improve outcomes in babies born to mothers with diabetes.

Brittany Morison, Dr Lynne Chepulis and Dr Ryan Paul

Our diabetes research is funded by the New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes, the Waikato Medical Research Foundation and the Health Research Council.

• Chepulis L, Morison B, Lao C, Keenan R, Paul R, Lawrenson R. The prevalence of mental health medication use in a cohort of New Zealand patients with diabetes. Prim Care Diabetes. 2020 Jul 25:S1751-9918(20)30226-6. doi: 10.1016/j.pcd.2020.07.004
• Paul RG, McMahon CD, Elston MS, Conaglen JV. GH replacement titrated to serum IGF-1 does not reduce concentrations of myostatin in blood or skeletal muscle. GH & IGF Research 2018; DOI: 10.1016/j.ghir.2018.12.001.
• Mayo M, Chepulis L, Paul RG. Glycemic-aware metrics and oversampling techniques for predicting blood glucose levels using machine learning. PLoS One 2019; 14(12):e0225613; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225613.
• Paul RG, Hennebry AS, Elston MS, Conaglen JV, McMahon C. Regulation of murine skeletal muscle growth by STAT5B is age- and sex-specific. Skeletal Muscle 2019; 9(1):19; DOI:10.1186/s13395-019-0204-3.
• Paul RG, Murugesh C, Chepulis L, Tamatea JAU, Wolmarans L. Should antenatal corticosteroids be considered in women with gestational diabetes before planned late gestation caesarean section. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology 2019; DOI: 10.1111/ajo.12963.
• Paul RG, McMahon CD, Elston MS, Conaglen JV. GH replacement titrated to serum IGF-1 does not reduce concentrations of myostatin in blood or skeletal muscle. GH & IGF Research 2018; DOI: 10.1016/j.ghir.2018.12.001.