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Intentional Weight Loss (intentional + weight_loss)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Medical Sciences60%

Selected Abstracts

Intentional weight loss and mortality among initially healthy men and women

NUTRITION REVIEWS, Issue 7 2008
Mette K Simonsen
Most prospective observational studies suggest that weight loss increases the risk of premature death among obese individuals. This is surprising because clinical studies show that weight loss generally leads to overall improvements in cardiovascular risk factors. It is sometimes argued that the increased mortality observed with weight loss must depend on confounding or poor study designs. This review was conducted to summarize results from studies on intentional weight loss and mortality among healthy individuals, while carefully considering the designs and problems in these studies. Evaluation criteria with a rating scale were developed. Of the studies evaluated, two found decreased mortality with intentional weight loss, three found increased mortality, and four found no significant associations between intentional weight loss and total mortality. Thus, it is still not possible for health authorities to make secure recommendations on intentional weight loss. More studies designed to specifically address this issue are warranted. [source]

An examination of the overlap between genetic and environmental risk factors for intentional weight loss and overeating

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EATING DISORDERS, Issue 6 2009
Tracey D. Wade PhD
Abstract Objective: To further our understanding of how intentional weight loss (IWL) and overeating are related, we examined the shared genetic and environmental variance between lifetime IWL and overeating. Method: Interview data were available for 1,976 female twins (both members of 439 and 264 pairs of monozygotic and dizygotic twins, respectively), mean age = 40.61, SD = 4.72. We used lifetime diagnostic data for eating disorders obtained from a semistructured psychiatric telephone interview, examined in a bivariate twin analysis. Both lifetime behaviors were measured on a 3-point scale, where absence of IWL or overeating formed one anchor on the scale and lifetime anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) formed the opposite anchors, respectively. Results: In line with previous findings, a higher body mass index was significantly associated with the lifetime presence of IWL and/or overeating (odds ratio = 1.13, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.08,1.19). The best fitting twin model contained additive genetic and nonshared environmental influence influencing both IWL and overeating, with correlations between these influences of 0.61 (95% CI: 0.35,0.92) and 0.24 (95% CI: 0.07,0.42), respectively. Discussion: About 37% of genetic risk factors were considered to overlap between IWL and overeating, and with only 6% of overlap between environmental risk factors. Thus, considerable independence of risk factors was indicated. © 2009 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 2009 [source]

Intentional weight loss and mortality among initially healthy men and women

NUTRITION REVIEWS, Issue 7 2008
Mette K Simonsen
Most prospective observational studies suggest that weight loss increases the risk of premature death among obese individuals. This is surprising because clinical studies show that weight loss generally leads to overall improvements in cardiovascular risk factors. It is sometimes argued that the increased mortality observed with weight loss must depend on confounding or poor study designs. This review was conducted to summarize results from studies on intentional weight loss and mortality among healthy individuals, while carefully considering the designs and problems in these studies. Evaluation criteria with a rating scale were developed. Of the studies evaluated, two found decreased mortality with intentional weight loss, three found increased mortality, and four found no significant associations between intentional weight loss and total mortality. Thus, it is still not possible for health authorities to make secure recommendations on intentional weight loss. More studies designed to specifically address this issue are warranted. [source]

Weight loss causes increased mortality: pros

OBESITY REVIEWS, Issue 1 2003
T. I. A. Sørensen
Summary There are many good reasons to expect that weight loss in overweight and obese subjects should lead to reduced mortality, not least because the general risk factor profile of several diseases responsible for the excess mortality associated with overweight and obesity improves with weight loss. However, observational long-term population studies have shown that weight loss in overweight subjects leads to increased long-term mortality, even if the studies are well controlled with regard to known confounding factors, including hazardous behaviour and underlying diseases that may lead to both weight loss and increased mortality. It seems unfeasible to wait for the multiple randomized clinical trials of sufficient quality, size and duration that may resolve this question. Therefore, the recommendations about weight loss must be based on the weaker evidence that can be obtained in short-term clinical trials and the observational population studies. Several studies have tried to address the problem by distinguishing intentional from unintentional weight loss, but only few do so by gathering information about the intention to lose weight before weight loss is observed. These studies suggest that intentional weight loss is associated with increased mortality. Recommendations to healthy overweight and obese subjects to lose weight must be based on an explicit weighing of the short-term well-documented benefits of weight loss, including improvement of quality of life, against the possible risk of an increased mortality in the long term [source]