Diabetes Researcher Honored for Lifetime Achievements

For his research that recognized the high incidence of type 2 diabetes in the Asian American community, the American Diabetes Association this year bestowed its Lifetime Achievement Award on Dr. Wilfred Fujimoto, emeritus professor of medicine in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition.

Fujimoto published more than 400 papers on the etiology and pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity, especially the development of these conditions in Japanese Americans. He was principal investigator of the Japanese American Community Diabetes Study, which showed that the Japanese American population has a rate of type 2 diabetes about twice that of Caucasians in the United States and as much as four times that of Japanese in Japan. (Recently, however, the rates in Japan have risen significantly.)

The findings suggested that Japanese as an ethnic group have a higher risk of developing diabetes and that this tendency is exacerbated by lifestyle changes associated with assimilation into Westernized society. These lifestyle changes were primarily in diet and levels of physical activity. The hypothesis is supported by collaborative work done in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which found rates for type 2 diabetes in Japanese Brazilians very similar to those in the United States. The results of the Japanese American study were later mirrored in many Asian American populations.

Fujimoto led follow-up studies that showed the efficacy of interventions such as exercise and dietary change in reducing the risk for diabetes among Japanese Americans.

In October 2001, Fujimoto moved back to Hawaii, where he grew up. Semi-retired, he continues his affiliation with the University of Washington.