Dana Dabelea, PhD, associate dean for research, was an author of a research study, which was published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology. The three-year randomized clinical trial included more than 3000 adults with pre-diabetes. The incidence of Type 2 diabetes was reduced by 24% with intensive lifestyle changes and by 17% with the medication Metformin. This three-year trial was part of a 21-year follow-up to the US Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP).
After the DPP ended in 2001, outcome assessments and modified interventions continued in the DPP Outcomes Study (DPPOS) to evaluate whether the original effects on diabetes incidence persisted and to identify heterogeneity in responses to interventions.
According to the study, “to delay or prevent the onset of diabetes, thereby increasing the time that individuals remain free of the disease. Although interventions can clearly reduce diabetes incidence over a period of a few years,1–5 it is not well known how long these effects persist, especially when interventions cease or are reduced in intensity. In the present analysis, compared with placebo, ILS and metformin substantially reduced annual diabetes incidence rates during the initial years of the trial, but this effect did not persist in subsequent years. Thus, the continued separation of the ILS and metformin cumulative incidence curves from the placebo curve during the DPPOS appeared to depend on the large initial intervention effects and the absence of a rebound in incidence rates during long-term follow-up.”
