A clinical trial supported by the NIH found that “adults with prediabetes assigned to a lifestyle intervention had a significantly lower risk of developing multiple chronic health conditions (known as multimorbidity) over time than those assigned to a placebo.”
The study also found that “participants assigned to receive metformin did not experience a statistically significant reduction in multimorbidity risk.”
Previous research showed that both “metformin and lifestyle interventions have been successful in preventing or delaying diabetes and metabolic syndrome.” The trial followed 1,173 participants at high risk of diabetes.
In the first part of the study, “lifestyle participants were offered 16 individual sessions of interventions followed by monthly sessions for approximately two years. The behavior change program targeted reduced calories and fat and at least 150 minutes of physical activity a week to achieve greater than or equal to 7% weight loss from baseline.” During the outcomes study portion, “all participants were offered quarterly group lifestyle sessions, and the original lifestyle participants received booster sessions twice annually.”
The researchers found that “85% of the study participants experienced two or more chronic conditions, with 82%, 85%, and 87% experiencing multimorbidity among lifestyle, metformin, and placebo groups, respectively.” Participants in the lifestyle intervention group had 21% lower risk for two chronic conditions than the placebo group. Participants assigned to metformin “did not experience a statistically significant reduction in risk for multimorbidity.”
