The Trustees of the Howard Foundation are delighted to announce that they are funding a four year research project based in Nepal. The CoDIAPREM (Community-based Diabetes Prevention and Remission) project will investigate whether reverting to a traditional diet could help reduce the growing number of people suffering with type-2 diabetes in Nepal.
Until recently type-2 diabetes was rare in Nepal. Nepalese people, along with other Asian and indigenous peoples, are genetically predisposed to type-2 diabetes but the disease only emerged after energy-dense processed foods were introduced to the country and people started to gain weight. Now, the country has a high prevalence of the disease and its disabling complications – about one in five people aged over 40 have it, and medication-based diabetes treatments are unaffordable for most people.
The project offers a model for low-cost intervention against type-2 diabetes using a simple finger-prick blood test that identifies individuals who either have or are likely to develop type-2 diabetes. The diet plan is delivered and supported mainly by local volunteers in a community-based programme with minimal demand on health professionals.
Professor Mike Lean of the University of Glasgow, who will lead an international team of researchers, has already conducted earlier small scale trials in Nepal. Following two years of preparation, the CoDIAPREM project was originally approved by the UK government as part of its Global Health Research Programme. However, subsequent budgetary changes resulted in the programme funding being withdrawn in July 2025. Professor Lean then approached the Foundation to ask if they could help. He is an alumnus of Downing College and gave the Howard Lecture in May 2025 where he described his decades long research into achieving remission of type-2 diabetes through nutrition. The results from the Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial (DiRECT) have now been adopted for routine care by the NHS.
Julie Lambert, Chair of the Howard Foundation, said: “My father, Dr Alan Howard, who set up the Howard Foundation in 1982, led research into obesity and weight loss in the 1960’s and 1970’s leading to the creation of a dietary approach to treating obesity. When Professor Lean approached the Foundation we saw that this research has now come full-circle. We believe that funding this project will have a major public health value. It will highlight the role of diet in both the prevention and treatment of diabetes in Nepal and in other low-to-medium economies.”
