TARA
Tanaka Project
The SMART Study: Aims and Design
Kiyoji Tanaka (Project Leader, PhD, FACSM),
and Yoshio Nakata (Research Associate, PhD)
We chose to name our research project (TARA
Tanaka project) the SMART Study (A study on Strategy
for the MAde-to-order weight Reduction
in Tsukuba), which will provide made-to-order weight
reduction programs with exercise training and diet in order to treat
obesity taking into account various kinds of individual information
including physical and genetic information. The name of the project
has two meanings; one is that the strategies (policy, methods, plans
and scheme) for treating obesity will be dispatched from Tsukuba to
all over the world, and the other is that according to the SMART Study,
the weight reduction programs can be appropriately (smartly) prescribed
to obese patients with various kinds of physical and genetic characteristics.
More than 100 men and 300 women will be tested, participate in weight
reduction programs for 14 weeks, and be re-tested during the 3-year
project period. In the first year, we will examine the relationships
of weight reduction during 14-week intervention with age, sex, menstrual
status, physical fitness levels, variation of body fat distribution
and obesity-related gene polymorphisms. Based on the outcomes
in the first year, we will divide subjects into groups with various
kinds of physical characteristics and will prescribe to them programs
which are expected to reduce equally the weights among the above groups.
In the second year, we will determine variables to explain differences
between actual and expected weight reductions using multivariate statistical
analysis. In the final year, we will verify the validity of the
weight reduction programs for each group. Our final goal is, therefore,
to develop a comprehensive system for prescribing made-to-order weight
reduction programs for obese individuals to decrease their health risk.
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