The prevention of diabetes 2 through diet, lifestyle and exercise is to be investigated in the largest study of its kind.
Eight EU nations, with New Zealand, Australia and Canada, are to take part in a 9 billion Euro EU-funded project headed by researchers at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Part of the project will aim to establish whether high-protein diets help to combat diabetes.
With 21 million Europeans now being treated for diabetes – and global estimates of more than 371 million people having the condition – the numbers have doubled in the past decade.
The increase has prompted the EU Commission to fund PREVIEW, which aims to find the most effective combination of diet, exercise and lifestyle related to type-2 diabetes prevention.
Professor Anne Raben, chief co-ordinator of the project and professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, said: “We would like to find out if our current dietary and exercise recommendations are optimal as relates to type-2 diabetes, or whether another lifestyle and regimen is more effective.
“It could save billions in health care costs for society if we are able to find a formula for how to best prevent type-2 diabetes.”
The three-year clinical research project will comprise 2,500 participants from 8 nations who will be randomly divided into groups that each follows a specific lifestyle programme. Each programme will include one of two kinds of "healthy" diet , and one of two forms of exercise.
“Both diet types are generally healthy, but can have differing effects upon health. In combination with exercise, we hope to be able to tailor an optimal lifestyle programme that can serve to prevent the occurrence of diabetes in society,” says Professor Raben.
The research will also include data from a range of large demographic surveys.
“What’s unique about this project is that we are testing the 2 diets against one another to find out if there might be a more effective alternative,” says Professor Raben.
“It has never been investigated whether a diet including more protein and fewer, but more slowly absorbed, carbohydrates is more effective at preventing diabetes. We will include 2 types of exercise as part of the investigations to determine if there is 1 that is more suitable. Finally, we will also study the importance of stress and sleeping patterns.”
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