RESEARCH ARTICLE Change of body weight and lifestyle of persons at risk for diabetes after screening and counselling in pharmacies Andrea Botomino Æ Rudolf Bruppacher Æ Stephan Kra ¨henbu ¨hl Æ Kurt E. Hersberger Received: 21 April 2005 / Accepted: 4 December 2005 / Published online: 29 November 2007 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007 Abstract Objective To investigate the effects of phar- macy based counselling on changes in lifestyle and body weight. Methods Three months after screening a stratified sample of 3,800 randomly chosen overweight persons were addressed with questionnaires. Half a year and 1 year later the assessment was repeated. Standard counselling (SC; non-specific recommendations towards lifestyle), intensive counselling (IC; additional advice to reduce body weight) and counselling for persons at high risk for type 2 diabetes (HRC; recommendation to contact a physician) were compared. Results All counselling groups (SC; n = 557, IC; n = 568, HRC; n = 245) showed significant weight loss three months after screening (0.6–1.9 kg). A further weight reduction was observed at 1 year follow up (1.1– 2.4 kg). The HRC group showed a higher percentage of weight loss than the IC or SC group after 3 months (-2.25% vs. -1.20% and -0.67%; P \ 0.001) and at 1 year of follow-up (-2.74% vs. -1.54% and -1.29%; P \ 0.01). Lifestyle changes in physical activity and/or nutrition were reported by 81.2% in the HRC group, 74.1% in the IC group and 67.0% in the SC group. Conclusion Immediate counselling in community pharmacies after screening for type 2 diabetes can result in significant life- style changes and weight loss in overweight individuals. Keywords Body weight Á Lifestyle change Á Overweight Á Pharmaceutical care Á Type 2 diabetes Impact of findings on practice • Counselling type-2 diabetes patients in community pharmacy is feasible. • Counselling after screening for type-2 diabetes in community pharmacies may result in changes in lifestyle and body weight. Introduction There is substantial evidence that lifestyle modifications through alterations in diet and improvement in exercise can delay or prevent progression from impaired glucose toler- ance to type 2 diabetes [1, 2]. A large diabetes screening campaign in Swiss community pharmacies [3] has detected 6.9% persons with suspicion for diabetes, and 71.5% had C2 risk factors (age [ 45 years, overweight of BMI, body mass index, C25 kg/m 2 , low physical activity, family history of diabetes, delivery of a baby [ 4 kg, and hyper- tension). This provided an opportunity to initiate targeted counselling regarding physical activity and/or nutrition in these individuals. The objective was to investigate the changes of body weight and lifestyle after three different types of counsel- ling provided to persons at risk immediately after screening for type 2 diabetes in community pharmacies. A. Botomino Á S. Kra ¨henbu ¨hl Á K. E. Hersberger (&) Institute of Clinical Pharmacy, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland e-mail: kurt.hersberger@unibas.ch R. Bruppacher Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland S. Kra ¨henbu ¨hl Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland 123 Pharm World Sci (2008) 30:222–226 DOI 10.1007/s11096-007-9174-3