AADE's Living Legend Award recognizes an extraordinary individual who exemplifies the proud history of diabetes education and serves as an extraordinary role model. Dr. Kaufman, this year's award winner and inventor of ExtendSnacks, has been described as a tireless advocate for patients with diabetes.Francine Kaufman, MD, was recognized with the AADE Living Legend Award in San Antonio, TX during the AADE Annual Meeting. Dr. Kaufman is a world renowned pediatric endocrinologist and Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at The Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. Until last year, she was head of the Center for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, where she is still an attending physician.
Dr. Kaufman's career has been dedicated to helping people with diabetes. In 2007-2008 she filmed a Discovery Health Documentary, Diabetes: The Global Epidemic. She is a member of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Advisory Council, a past president of the American Diabetes Association, and the developer of ExtendSnacks, nutritional snack foods designed to reduce episodes of hypoglycemia and improve glycemic control for people with diabetes. She was also instrumental in banning the sale of soda at schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
She wrote a popular book aimed at policy-makers and the public, Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America - And What We Must Do to Stop It, in which she writes that the diabetes is so pervasive that it "imperils human existence as we now know it." It is among 30 books or book chapters she has published, along with 200 scientific articles.Recently, she has chaired NIH-funded TODAY and HEALTHY trials, which seek to understand prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents.
"The HEALTHY trial was a middle school intervention to try to reduce risk factors for type 2 diabetes, and really looked at changing the environment in the school. Then the other part of the trail, TODAY, is still going on and is trying to determine best treatment strategies for type 2 diabetes in youth," Dr. Kaufman said.
She is also a principal investigator in TrialNet, a network of NIH-funded research studies looking at ways to prevent and reverse type 1 diabetes through the preservation of beta-cell function.
Dr. Kaufman said she was honored to be recognized by diabetes educators at the AADE Annual Meeting. "AADE is really critical to anybody who is practicing in the diabetes arena to ensure our patients have the best possible outcomes, so I've been very supportive of AADE, and of educators and their role," Dr. Kaufman said. "To really care for someone with diabetes you have to have a team, and the team is really made whole by diabetes educators."
Dr. Kaufman continues her work for people with diabetes on numerous projects, often serving in an advisory role. Recent projects include the launch of both ExtendShakes and ExtendCrisps, offering more tasty varieties of foods made to help stabilize blood sugar. (ExtendSnacks are available online, as well as pharmacy and retail locations nationwide.) Dr. Kaufman also currently oversees research working toward the development of an artificial pancreas.
This article is adapted from the "AADE Daily News" publication: Thursday, August 5th, 2010, page 4.
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