Who stays healthy?

The Helmholtz Cohort will be the largest nationwide population study ever to be held in Germany, with a total of 200,000 study participants. Its aim is to gain new insights into the causes of common multifactorial diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, dementias and cardiovascular diseases. Prof. Dr. Dr. H.-Erich Wichmann from the Helmholtz Center Munich and Prof. Dr. Rudolf Kaaks from the German Cancer Research Center are the scientific coordinators of this major project.

At the start of the examination period, the participants in the Helmholtz Cohort have to be at least 20 years old and healthy. Over a period of ten to twenty years, they will be invited to undergo regular medical examinations and will, inter alia, be asked about their living habits. Specially developed questionnaires are used for this, for example, on the topics of personality, lifestyle, stress, nutrition, physical activity, use of medications and socioeconomic status. Regular blood samples will also be taken and stored in a biobank, and modern imaging methods will be used as well. In the course of the examination period, some participants will develop diseases. The previously collected data will then be of inestimable value for tracking down the causes of disease development.

“In carrying out this large-scale cohort study we want to find out what risk factors are responsible, from an epidemiological perspective, for the development of diseases, and how great their impact actually is. With this knowledge, we could open up new future paths for prevention and early detection of disease,” says Rudolf Kaaks. The three-year planning and pilot phase began in early 2009. Questionnaires are being developed, examination concepts drawn up, data collection methods and paths for recruiting subjects tested and collaborative survey partners recruited in order to be able collect and analyse the data. After the three-year planning period, the process of recruiting the Helmholtz Cohort will begin.