Modest Weight Loss Can Reap Prolonged Health Benefits
Study found reduced diabetes risk, even if weight returned.
THURSDAY, Aug. 2, 2012 (HealthDay
News) — Even modest weight
loss can give overweight and obese people a decade's worth of
important health benefits, according to a new study.
The study included 3,000 overweight people with impaired glucose
tolerance — a pre-diabetic
condition — who were shown how to change their behavior rather than
being prescribed drugs.
The behavioral strategies used by the participants to help them lose
weight included keeping track of everything they ate, reducing the amount of
unhealthy food they kept in their home and increasing their amount of physical
Even a modest weight loss — an average of 14 pounds —
reduced the risk of developing type
2 diabetes by 58 percent. And the health benefits of this weight loss
lasted up to 10 years, even if people regained the weight, said study author
Rena Wing, professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University in
The study was scheduled for presentation Thursday at the American
Psychological Association annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.
"Helping people find ways to change their eating and activity
behaviors and developing interventions other than medication to reinforce a
healthy lifestyle have made a huge difference in preventing one of the major
health problems in this country," Wing, who is also director of the Weight
Control and Diabetes Research Center at the Miriam Hospital in Providence, said
in an association news release.
"Weight losses of just 10 percent of a person's body weight ...
have also been shown to have a long-term impact on sleep apnea, hypertension
and quality of life, and to slow the decline in mobility that occurs as people
age," she noted.
Wing is now leading a 13-year study of 5,000 people with type 2
diabetes to determine whether an intensive behavioral intervention can lower
the risk of heart disease and heart attacks.
"We are trying to show that behavior changes not only make people
healthier in terms of reducing heart disease risk factors but actually can make
them live longer," she said.
Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and
conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed