National health study launched

Our Future Health, a health research programme, which aims to be the UK's largest ever, has launched, with the intention to help people live healthier lives for longer.

The programme will cover the discovery and testing of more effective approaches to prevention, earlier detection and treatment of diseases.

The programme aims to improve prevention and treatment and deliver better health outcomes by helping researchers develop new ways to detect disease earlier, as well as identify people who are at higher risk of disease.

Our Future Health aims to recruit five million adult volunteers who will provide information about their health and lifestyles and a blood sample to build up a picture of the health of the nation.

The information given will be combined with health records.

The programme will allow researchers from universities, charities, the NHS and companies involved in health research to discover and test more effective ways to predict, test and treat common diseases including dementia, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

The data will also be made available for research in Trusted Research Environments.

Those wishing to take part can sign up online.

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