%0 Journal Article
%T Reversal of Obesity: the Quest For the Optimum Dietary Regimen - Reversal of Obesity: the Quest For the Optimum Dietary Regimen - Open Access Pub
%A Rachel Nicoll
%J OAP | Home | International Journal of Nutrition | Open Access Pub
%D 2018
%X A new approach to weight loss and weight loss maintenance is urgently needed, with the global epidemic of obesity leading to ever higher levels of chronic disease. This new approach should be cheap and simple, it should maintain essential nutrients and not deplete lean mass, should have minimal adverse effects and be carried out safely at home without support from the healthcare profession. This review looked at the forms of caloric restriction (CR) investigated in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and found that supervised continuous and intermittent CR was more effective than other forms of weight loss over periods from 12 weeks to 2 years and could improve cardiovascular and diabetes risk factors. CR was equally as effective as bariatric surgery, suggesting that it is the post-surgery caloric restriction that has the impact on weight, rather than the surgery itself. Intermittent CR, including alternate day fasting (ADF), was as effective as continuous CR but may show improved compliance and higher lean mass. Unsupervised weight loss maintenance presents a greater problem, since in most weight loss regimens all the weight lost is ultimately regained. Although both continuous and intermittent CR can be effective, it has been found that ADF and a higher protein intake is more likely to maintain the weight loss. These results hold for all age groups and ethnicities and both genders. These findings suggest that intermittent CR, and particularly ADF, may be a viable form of weight loss and maintenance which fulfils all the criteria above. It is therefore recommended that larger RCTs investigate intermittent CR and ADF as a viable and cost effective form of weight loss and weight loss maintenance. DOI10.14302/issn.2379-7835.ijn-17-1548 There is now a global epidemic of obesity 1, which is a critical risk factor for development of insulin resistance 2, 3, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes (T2D) 4, 5, 6, 7 and its co-morbidities, including cardiovascular disease and cancer 8, 9. In 2014, more than 1.9 billion adults were classified as overweight, of whom 600 million were considered obese; these figures are double those from the 1980s. In the UK alone, figures from 2005 show that over 50% of the population were overweight or obese; this percentage will only have worsened in the intervening years. Obesity incidence is occurring at considerably younger ages 10 and there are now more deaths globally from obesity and diet-related chronic disease than from malnutrition 11; it was estimated that over 15% of all US deaths result from obesity-related
%U https://www.openaccesspub.org/ijn/article/473