UPBEAT trial




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Welcome to the UPBEAT trial!

Obesity is a major problem in modern society and we know that women who are heavy at the start of pregnancy can be at risk of almost every pregnancy complication particularly diabetes, and the baby can grow too large. This can cause problems at birth and longer term health issues for the child. The UPBEAT trial aimed to find out whether, by making changes to the food obese pregnant women eat and increasing physical activity reduces these problems, and leads to improved long term health for mother and child.

The UPBEAT trial was funded by the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

The original study finished recruiting in 2014, but we are still following up the UPBEAT families to see what impact the intervention has had. If you took part in the original research and would like to take part in the follow-up study please contact the UPBEAT Team at childrenofupbeat@kcl.ac.uk.

We welcome applications for the use of the UPBEAT trial data and samples from the academic and scientific community. If you are interested in accessing the data please contact Lucilla Poston (lucilla.poston@kcl.ac.uk) and request an UPBEAT research application form to complete and return. All applications are considered by the UPBEAT Scientific Advisory Committee.

Headlines

UPBEAT update [2015-09-24]

We are pleased to say that the outcome of the trial has been analysed and we have published the results of the trial in a medical journal, Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology. This paper can be accessed from the following link, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26165396

The study showed that although the UPBEAT diet and physical intervention did not help prevent gestational diabetes in the mothers, the participants did change their diet very significantly as a result of the health trainer support. This is good news as we now know a safe way of helping obese pregnant women improve their diets and physical activity. However, other strategies will have to be considered for preventing gestational diabetes, and we are working on ways of identifying early in pregnancy women who are most at risk of diabetes with a view to treating them either with diet or medicines early in pregnancy. We are eagerly awaiting analysis of the mothers’ diets after pregnancy to see if the healthy trends are maintained.