Losing weight and keeping it off is usually a troublesome course of for a lot of shoppers, however researchers from the University of Copenhagen are exploring methods to maintain a wholesome weight loss.
Their research centered on obese contributors who first modified their diets to lose weight. The workforce discovered that constantly participating in reasonable to intense bodily exercise and taking an appetite-suppressing drug helped folks preserve weight reduction whereas staying wholesome.
“The downside is that persons are preventing in opposition to organic forces when shedding weight,” said researcher Signe Torekov. “The urge for food will increase concurrently with decreased vitality consumption, and this counteracts weight reduction upkeep. We have an appetite-stimulating hormone, which will increase dramatically after we reduce weight, and concurrently the extent of the appetite-suppressing hormone drops dramatically.
“In addition, a weight reduction can provoke lack of muscle mass, whereas the physique reduces vitality consumption. Thus, when the main focus in weight problems therapy has been on how you can acquire a weight reduction — somewhat than how you can preserve a weight reduction — it’s actually troublesome to do one thing about your state of affairs,” Torekov stated.
The keys to sustaining weight reduction
The researchers analyzed 215 contributors with obesity who had misplaced roughly 30 kilos earlier than the research started however had no train routine in place.
To see what strategies labored greatest to take care of a healthy weight reduction, the workforce created 4 teams: two obtained an appetite-suppressing drug and two got a placebo. The teams have been divided even additional based mostly on train; one group in every of the drug and placebo subgroups was given a reasonable to intense exercise routine, whereas the opposite was instructed to hold on with their present bodily exercise routine.
Ultimately, the researchers discovered that the mix of an train routine and the appetite-suppressing drug yielded the most effective well being outcomes. Participants on this group noticed enhancements to key well being measures, reminiscent of blood sugar, fats mass, and total high quality of life. They additionally misplaced extra weight over the course of the one-year research by adhering to each therapies.
However, not all the teams had such constructive responses to their interventions. Those who got the placebo tablet and didn’t undertake an train routine had a better danger of coronary heart illness and kind 2 diabetes; additionally they gained again half the load they’d misplaced. Participants who had both simply obtained the drug or had simply began exercising maintained their weight reduction, however they didn’t acquire any extra well being advantages.
Having assist is necessary
The researchers imagine a key element of this research was the assist providers that have been out there to the contributors over the course of the yr. Having these sources in place helped information contributors via their weight reduction and well being targets, and the workforce believes this ought to be adopted extra extensively.
“Without a follow-up on whether or not folks even have assist to carry out train, the therapy won’t be sufficient,” Torekov stated. “Therefore, we additionally adopted up with the contributors on an ongoing foundation to make sure that they obtained the assist they wanted in an effort to train. That is critical, as a result of sustaining weight reduction is extraordinarily laborious. People want to grasp this. Once you might have misplaced weight, you aren’t ‘cured.’ The ongoing train and energy will seemingly must proceed for a few years.”
