What are the previously unknown risk factors for common diseases? What can protect against them? What influence do the environment, working environment and social relationships have on our health? The largest long-term population study in Germany aims to answer these and other questions. The 18 study centres of the German National Cohort (NAKO) are now inviting people to take part in medical examinations for the third time and welcomed the first participants at the beginning of June.
Ten years ago, NAKO participants were randomly selected via the residents’ registration office and invited by their local study centre to take part in Germany’s largest population study. Participants are now invited to their third medical examination.
“When I was first contacted ten years ago, I was still working as a nurse in a doctor’s surgery. Everyone in the team thought it was good that I was taking part in the NAKO as a test subject and understood how important such a study is,” recalls the now 68-year-old participant, who has now visited the Berlin-Mitte study centre for the third time for the medical examinations. “The staff at the study centre always explain everything to me clearly and comprehensibly, and I’m always happy to come back,” she adds.
‘Every participant makes an important contribution to research into diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. We would like to thank all participants in the German National Cohort (NAKO) for this engagement and look forward to all those who will be examined for a third time over the next four years,’ says PD Dr. Lilian Krist, Head of the NAKO Study Centre Berlin-Mitte and one of the two spokespersons for the 18 NAKO Study Centres across Germany.
In the first week of June, five participants visited the temporary Neustrelitz location of the Neubrandenburg study centre for their third examination appointment. The study centre in Neubrandenburg has two sites, which are operated by Greifswald University Medicine. ‘I will be emigrating soon. That’s why it was particularly important for me to take another opportunity to look at my state of health. I see the renewed participation as a review of myself and will continue to be available to the German National Cohort (NAKO),’ says Lutz-Günther Grimm, participant at the temporary NAKO location in Neustrelitz, underlining his motivation to take part.
Professor Dr. Thomas Keil, scientific co-project leader of the German National Cohort (NAKO) at Charité’s Institute of Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics: ‘Large long-term studies with many people from the entire population are very costly and time-consuming, but are urgently needed to improve disease prediction and prevention. After all, it is important to record the lifestyle of healthy people before the first occurrence of a disease or to take blood samples in order to determine new markers for early detection and then to observe who falls ill or remains healthy in the further course of their lives.’
For the second re-examination, all NAKO participants are invited by their study centre to the next examination every four to five years. During the second re-examination, participants are also asked about their living conditions, examined using a series of standardised tests ranging from blood pressure measurements to hand grip tests and biomaterials such as blood or urine samples are collected. The NAKO locations Berlin-Mitte, Berlin-Nord, Essen, Hanover, Leipzig, Neubrandenburg and Regensburg are inviting the participants of the German National Cohort (NAKO) to the study centres for the start of the second re-examonation. The study centres in Augsburg, Berlin-South/Brandenburg, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Freiburg, Halle, Hamburg, Kiel, Mannheim, Münster and Saarbrücken will follow so that the follow-up examinations will take place in all study centres nationwide from the summer.