For 80 years, I’ve been in a clinical trial – this is what it’s taught me about a long life

Résumé détaillé

They would be followed throughout their lifetimes, contributing to vital health findings that have shaped medical policy and treatment. Today, the National Survey of Health and…

In March 1946, around 5,300 babies born within the same week in England, Wales and Scotland were recruited to take part in what has become the longest-running health study ever conducted.

They would be followed throughout their lifetimes, contributing to vital health findings that have shaped medical policy and treatment. Today, the National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD) is the world’s longest-running study of its kind – and around 2,500 of the volunteers, now all 80, are still taking part.

“These are basically the most studied people on Earth and they have contributed to the longest continuous study of human health in a population that has ever been done, so we’re hugely grateful to them for their commitment to research,” says Professor Jonathan Schott, professor of neurology at University College London, which manages the study. “They have contributed so much throughout their lives and influenced research and practice.”

The study, funded by the Medical Research Council, was initially intended to investigate why the birth rate had fallen in the 1930s and 1940s, looking at the impact of childbirth and the effectiveness of maternity services. A key finding was that only one fifth of mothers had received pain relief during childbirth, which led to a law change allowing midwives to give pain relief without a doctor present.

Since then, the survey continued, with participants regularly having developmental data taken, including measurements of the body, as well as tests for cognition, memory and health markers such as heart rate, balance and lung function. Decades of research showed that how we are brought up as children, including whether or not we are breastfed, our diets and the schools we go to, can have a lasting and profound effect on health and wellbeing, and how socioeconomic factors are fundamentally linked to health.

“Being part of the survey has always made me feel special – I remember being called out of class when I was eight to do an intelligence…

Bein…

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