Let's Prevent Diabetes

Let’s Prevent is the first randomised controlled study looking at whether an educational lifestyle programme (of diet and exercise) can prevent those with a condition called pre-diabetes going on to develop diabetes. Diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance are increasingly appearing in younger people and, before the onset of diabetes, most people will have some degree of abnormal glucose tolerance, as has been found in previous screening studies such as STAR & ADDITION.

The most efficient way to address the problem of diabetes and its complications is to prevent diabetes from developing research on patients with impaired glucose tolerance has shown that prevention is possible, particularly using lifestyle modification interventions.

The aim of the study is to establish whether the use of a structured lifestyle modification programme (based on the DESMOND programme) prevents those with pre-diabetes going on to develop diabetes.

People in the study are still attending clinic sessions and will continue to do so through 2013 and into 2014, with the last participant scheduled for their final visit in July 2014. We hope to publish our first results in about 18 months time, although some of the early findings have already been presented at scientific conferences in the UK and in Europe - details listed below. (Let’s Prevent is funded by a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) programme grant

The Study is still in progress and the first papers with the outcome data are due to be published after September 2014.  

However the study team has had posters accepted Diabetes UK and also published papers into the initial findings and the use of the practices risk score - details listed below.

Gray L.J, Khunti K, William S, Goldby S, Troughton J, Yates T, Gray A, Davies MJ (2012) Let's Prevent Diabetes: study protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial of an educational intervention in a multi-ethnic UK population with screen detected impaired glucose regulation. Cardiovascular Diabetology, 11:56

S Williams, LJ Gray, K Khunti, S Goldby, T Yates, MJ Davies (2011) Baseline data of the Let’s Prevent diabetes screening study. Poster Presentation - Diabetes UK 2011

S Goldby, LJ Gray, K Khunti, S Williams, D Sheppard, N Taub, T Yates, MJ Davies (2011)  Using the Leicester practice risk score to identify people with diabetes and impaired glucose regulation. Poster Presentation -  Diabetes UK 2011


Accepted by Diabetologia for publication:

LJ Gray, K Khunti, C Edwardson, S Goldby, J Henson, DH Morris, D Sheppard, D Webb, S Williams, T Yates, MJ Davies (2012)  Implementation of the automated Leicester Practice Risk Score in two diabetes prevention trials provides a high yield of people with abnormal glucose tolerance.