England's diabetes prevention programme has delivered causal benefits, study reports
https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2691
Englands diabetes prevention programme has delivered causal benefits, study reports
BMJ 2023; 383 doi:
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.p2691 (Published 15 November 2023)
Cite this as: BMJ 2023;383:p2691
Gareth Iacobucci
Patients referred to the NHSs national diabetes prevention programme in England have seen improvements in key cardiovascular risk factors including reductions in blood glucose levels and body weight, a study1 published in Nature has reported.
US researchers said their evaluation of the scheme offered causal evidence that behaviour change programmes are a viable prevention strategy for type 2 diabetes.
Lead author Pascal Geldsetzer told The BMJ, We find that intensive lifestyle counselling for prediabetes, when implemented at scale in routine care, has beneficial effects on health measures that we know are important for cardiometabolic health. This is important evidence for health systems and clinicians because it implies that counselling by itself can be effective, at least in the short to medium term, if done intensively and in a structured programme.
The NHS diabetes prevention programme, which launched in 2016, provides patients who are referred with personalised help to reduce their risk of type 2 diabetes, including healthy eating and lifestyle education, weight loss advice, and bespoke physical exercise programmes. It consists of at least 13 group sessions over nine months and is open to patients with defined threshold blood glucose levels.
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