Effects of Primary Prevention on Non-communicable Disease in Elderly People-An Intervention Study in 70 Year Old Men and Women, the Healthy Aging Initiative

The number of elderly will increase rapidly in Europe in the next 30 years, which affects the country's economic and social development, welfare, health care, and also the individuals. Future challenges include creating opportunities for people to maintain a high well-being in later stages of life, and coping with diseases and disability. Physical exercise and avoiding obesity have the potential to increase quality of life in the elderly by preventing CVD and stroke.

The proposed project is a intervention study where the overarching aim is to evaluate whether a primary prevention with the focus of decreasing obesity and increasing objective measures of physical activity will decrease the future risk of the endpoints cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, falls, fractures, dementia and death, in a population based cohort of 70-year-old women and men.

Specific aims: In a population based cohort of 5000, 70-year old women and men;

1. Investigate the association between risk factors assessed at baseline, with focus on objective measures of physical activity and body fat distribution, and the endpoints described above.
2. To investigate whether individuals given the prevention will have a lower future risk of the endpoints described above than 70-year olds in general Swedish population, after adjustments for differences in the different covariates at baseline.

In a second part, a follow up will be conducted after 5 years where all participants will be tested again. One aim is to evaluate whether the changes in the risk factors assessed at baseline, with focus of objective measures of physical activity and body fat distribution, are associated with the risk of CVD and stroke. We will also again investigate whether the intervention give will influence the future risk of non-communicable disease.