Costs of a self-selected, health-promoting diet among the participants of the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study

Several studies have shown that lifestyle changes including weight reduction, increased physical activity, and dietary modification are effective in preventing the development of type 2 diabetes (1–4). However, various barriers are known to interfere with the adoption of a healthier lifestyle. One such barrier is diet costs (5). A few studies have explored the relationship between the quality and costs of diets (6–13), and the results are conflicting. Observational studies (6–10) suggest that a healthy diet costs more, whereas intervention studies (11–13) suggest that a healthy diet is not more expensive than a less healthy diet. The aim of this study was to discover whether adopting a diet composed in line with the current nutrition recommendations (14) affects diet costs. The changes in the costs of a self-selected diet among participants in the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study (DPS) were studied. The diet costs were compared between the control group and intervention group receiving intensive dietary and exercise counseling. Furthermore, the associations between background variables, diet quality determinants, and diet cost were analyzed. The DPS was a randomized, controlled trial showing that an intensive lifestyle modification program including dietary and physical exercise counseling is highly effective in decreasing the risk of diabetes in high-risk subjects. The study design, subjects, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and intervention program have been previously …