Skip to navigation Skip to main content Skip to footer

Approved Research

Dietary patterns and risk of death, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer in diabetes subgroups

Principal Investigator: Dr Sabrina Schlesinger
Approved Research ID: 98050
Approval date: January 11th 2023

Lay summary

The number of people with type 2 diabetes (T2D) has increased in recent decades, and a further increase is expected. Persons with T2D are at increased risk of developing additional complications, including cardiovascular diseases (CVD), chronic kidney diseases (CKD), neurodegenerative diseases and cancer, and thus are at increased risk of premature death. Adherence to healthy dietary patterns such as the Mediterranean diet, the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, and a plant-based diet has been associated with a lower risk of developing T2D. However, there is an urgent need to investigate whether diet has also an impact on the prevention of diabetes related-complications and comorbidities in persons diagnosed with T2D. Moreover, it is widely known that T2D is not a homogenous disease and individuals with T2D have different clinical features, disease progression, and development of comorbidities and complications. Therefore, the aim of this proposal is to investigate different dietary patterns (the Mediterranean diet, the DASH diet, and a plant-based diet) with mortality and the development of CVD, CKD, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer in different risk groups of T2D. The findings will help inform optimal dietary guidance to prevent complications and comorbidities in different diabetes risk groups.  

The duration of the project is expected to be 36 months.