The Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study (DPPOS) (https://dppos.bsc.gwu.edu/web/dppos) was terminated abruptly on March 10, 2025, as part of the cuts to federal research funding. DPPOS is a landmark 30-year longitudinal study which continues to follow 1700 dedicated participants at 30 institutions across the US. The DPPOS, which is the long-term follow-up study of the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), is an NIH-sponsored multi-center study. In total, DPP and DPPOS have studied their volunteer participants for nearly 30 years across 22 states. 

Of note, the original DPP established the means of preventing type 2 diabetes. The results were announced in 2002 at a press conference by Tommy Thompson, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services at the time. The DPP lifestyle modification program was shown to reduce the development of diabetes by 58% and was subsequently adopted and funded by Medicare. The long-term follow-up of the DPP, called the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcome Study (DPPOS), was continuing with funding from the NIH to study the long-term effects of diabetes prevention.  Most recently, DPPOS has turned its attention to the study of Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias, and their relationship to diabetes. The prevention of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and dementia, has been highlighted as priorities by the current Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Over the past 3 decades, we have continued to follow the same participants and studied health conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases (heart and blood vessel disease), nerve damage, kidney disease, and eye disease in addition to diabetes. As our participants age, we have shifted our focus to age-related health problems such as trouble with physical function and difficulties with cognition (thinking and memory).

If the DPPOS study ends prematurely, we will miss the opportunity to answer the important questions it aimed to answer. Specifically, this phase of DPPOS was identifying the occurrence and causes of dementia in people with diabetes and at high risk to develop diabetes. In addition, the effects of cognitive decline on a host of functional and clinical outcomes were being studied. The DPPOS addresses the National Alzheimer’s Project Act goal to “prevent, halt, or reverse Alzheimer’s disease” in the high-risk group of persons with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes, who represent over half of the population aged 60 years and older in the US.  Answering all of these important questions has now been stopped. 

Please join us in urging NIH to restore the funding for this invaluable study!