Int Milan seeks 100,000 volunteers to study cancer risk factors

A healthy lifestyle helps maintain good health and reduce the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It is estimated that following international prevention recommendations reduces the number of new cases of cancer by up to 40 per cent, which saves on healthcare costs and promotes active ageing.

Eating patterns and lifestyles have changed rapidly in recent decades. This makes it necessary to update guidelines, taking into account new habits whose long-term effects on health are unknown. Hence the idea of YouGoody, a new cohort study, completely online, which will analyse, in a large sample of the Italian population, dietary and lifestyle behaviours and relate them to health status.

Promoted by the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori in Milan, YouGoody aims to involve at least 100,000 volunteers throughout Italia. Participants will be asked to describe their diet, physical activity, smoking, alcohol, sleep and other characteristics such as anthropometry and health status. In order to participate, it is not necessary to change one's lifestyle, but it is sufficient to answer the questions in the questionnaires, which can also be filled in at a later date. The study plans to update the data collected every two years, to observe and study the effects of lifestyle trajectories on health status.

The study's web platform (www.yougoody.it) will allow informed consent to be signed and questionnaires to be completed in a completely secure manner.

Once the initial questionnaires have been filled out, you will receive the Newsletter and have access to the contents of the platform dedicated to participants. In addition to videos and informative texts on current health topics, you will have access to a software (Goody's recipes) with which you can modify traditional Italian recipes, improving their nutritional quality, i.e. the content of salt, saturated fats, simple sugars, fibre and fruit and vegetables.