The Paris Cardiovascular Risk Factor Prevention Trial. Effects of two years of intervention in a population of young men

Abstract

The Paris Cardiovascular Risk Factor Prevention Trial was designed to determine whether individualised intervention could induce a reduction in the coronary risk factor levels in young men. Three thousand three hundred and thirty-six men aged 25 to 35, working in the 160 sections of a large Parisian administration, were examined. The sections were randomly allocated to a control and an intervention group. Advice concerning diet, cigarette smoking, and physical activity was provided repeatedly to the subjects in the intervention group. Two years after the first intervention, the first 1292 subjects who entered the study, whether from the intervention or the control group, were recalled; 86% of the intervention group and 84% of the control group responded. The changes in weight, blood pressure, and cigarette smoking in the intervention group, corrected for changes in the control group, were respectively -0.4 kg (p = 0.06), -1.4 mm Hg (p < 0.05), and -1.2 cigarettes (p < 0.01). There was no difference between the two groups in serum cholesterol change. Most of these results concerning young men are in agreement with recently reported results of community intervention programmes in middle-aged men.