PREVIEW is a 5-y EU project (2013-2017) under the FP7, KBBE programme involving 15 partners from Europe, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand (1). The primary goal is to identify the most efficient lifestyle pattern for the prevention of type-2 diabetes in a population of pre-diabetic overweight and obese individuals. The impact and interaction of diet, physical activity, sleep and stress will be investigated.
The project comprises two distinct lines of evidence:
1) A multicentre, clinical, randomized, intervention trial (3 years) with a total of 2500 pre-diabetic participants, including children, adolescents, adults and elderly (2). The impact of a high-protein, low-glycemic index diet vs. the officially recommended diet in combination with moderate or high intensity physical activity on the incidence of type-2 diabetes and several other end-points will be investigated. Also, their interaction with habitual stress, sleeping pattern as well as behavioural, environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic variables will be studied. The trial starts with an 8-week weight loss diet with LCD (Cambridge Weight Plan) followed by a 146-weeks weight maintenance period with 4 different intervention arms.
2) Large population studies using data from all age groups in European and overseas countries (estimated persons included = 170,000). The same endpoints will be studied as in the clinical trial.
By the end of May 2014 - at the time of submission of this abstract – a total of 8300 subjects had been pre-screened, 2,900 had been screened, and 1280 subjects found eligible for the clinical trial, >50% of the total number needed (n = 2500), with two-thirds female, mean age 52 y. During the initial LCD phase, 84% of the subjects had achieved a weight loss of 8% of body weight, which is higher than the 75% hypothesized in the PREVIEW concept.
PREVIEW recruitment activities started in June 2013 and are still ongoing. Almost 1200 adult participants have already started the intervention.