Three decades of landmark research into type 2 diabetes prevention abruptly ended this month due to government funding cuts.
The Endocrine Society calls on the administration to restore the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) and DPP Outcomes Study funded through the National Institutes of Health.
The Society is concerned about how the loss of this ongoing research, which is being conducted at 30 institutions in 21 states, will impact tens of millions of people who have diabetes and prediabetes nationwide. The Society is the largest professional organization for clinicians who treat and scientists who study diabetes and other hormone health conditions.
The DPP, which started in 1996, found that lifestyle changes or taking the medication metformin could prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes in people at risk of developing the condition. The study demonstrated that a 5%-7% weight loss lowered the risk of developing diabetes by 58%.
The DPP Outcomes Study is the long-term follow-up study of the DPP cohort, and is currently studying Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, in addition to continuing to study the long-term effects of diabetes prevention on other health conditions, such as cancer, heart disease and stroke, nerve damage, kidney disease and eye disease. It has continued to follow many of the more than 3,100 surviving DPP participants since 2002.
The research provides an important source of long-term information on diabetes prevention. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 38.4 million people in the United States had diabetes as of 2021. That is 11.6% of the population. Another estimated 97.6 million U.S. adults had prediabetes as of 2021.
Preventing and delaying the onset of diabetes can help reduce other chronic conditions, such as heart and kidney disease, and control health care costs. The direct and indirect costs of treating diagnosed cases of diabetes nationwide total an estimated $413 billion in 2022, according to the CDC. Eliminating the Diabetes Prevention Program contradicts the country’s commitment to addressing chronic disease and making America healthy.
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