Category: Weight Loss

A weight loss fruit that makes you feel full, improves your gut health, and reduces absorption of fats.

Having an avocado every day as part of your diet increases healthy gut bacteria and reduce the absorption of fat.

The fruit is rich in fibre and monounsaturated fat, a healthy fat that lowers “bad” LDL cholesterol in the blood.

A study has found that people who eat avocados have higher levels of the gut microbes responsible for breaking down fibres and producing a number of metabolites (short-chain fatty acids) that improve gut health.

Ms Sharon Thompson, the study’s first author, said:

“We know eating avocados helps you feel full and reduces blood cholesterol concentration, but we did not know how it influences the gut microbes, and the metabolites the microbes produce.

Microbial metabolites are compounds the microbes produce that influence health.

Avocado consumption reduced bile acids and increased short chain fatty acids.

These changes correlate with beneficial health outcomes.”

Bile acids are produced by the liver, stored in the gallbladder, and released into the intestine for breaking down fats from foods we eat.

Western diets are higher in fats causing more production of bile acids which can alert the gut microbiota population and cause intestinal inflammation.

The study recruited 163 overweight or obese participants and divided them into two groups, both receiving a normal diet.

The only difference was that one ate fresh avocados (175 g for men or 140 g for women) as part of a meal every day for 12 weeks and the other group had a similar diet but no avocados.

Dr Hannah Holscher, study co-author, said:

“Our goal was to test the hypothesis that the fats and the fiber in avocados positively affect the gut microbiota.

We also wanted to explore the relationships between gut microbes and health outcomes.

Despite avocados being high in fat, the avocado group absorbed less fat compared to the other group.

Dr Holscher said:

“Greater fat excretion means the research participants were absorbing less energy from the foods that they were eating.

This was likely because of reductions in bile acids, which are molecules our digestion system secretes that allow us to absorb fat.

We found that the amount of bile acids in stool was lower and the amount of fat in the stool was higher in the avocado group.”

Types of fats found in foods affect the gut microbiome differently, for example, avocados contain monounsaturated fats which are considered heart-healthy.

On top of that, avocados are high in soluble fibre: an average avocado contains 12 g of fibres which is a big portion of the daily recommended fibre intake (28 to 34 g).

Dr Holscher said:

“Less than 5% of Americans eat enough fiber.

Most people consume around 12 to 16 grams of fiber per day.

Thus, incorporating avocados in your diet can help get you closer to meeting the fiber recommendation.

Eating fiber isn’t just good for us; it’s important for the microbiome, too.

We can’t break down dietary fibers, but certain gut microbes can.

When we consume dietary fiber, it’s a win-win for gut microbes and for us.”

People shouldn’t worry that avocados are high in calories as it is more important that it is a nutrient-dense food that contains micronutrients like fibre and potassium that we don’t get enough of.

Related

• Avocados contain a fat molecule that could help prevent diabetes and maintain a healthy weight.

The study was published in The Journal of Nutrition (Thompson et al., 2020).

Reduce your belly fat 10 percent with a half cup of this food.

Lowering sugar consumption by about one can of soda and adding one half-cup of fibre-rich foods daily reduces abdominal fat and type 2 diabetes risk.

A study has found that decreasing about 47 grams of sugar intake per day — equivalent to a can of soda — lowers insulin secretion, on average, by 33 percent.

Increasing fibre intake by 5 grams a day — the amount in a half cup of beans — results in a 10 percent reduction of belly fat.

Visceral fat is a type of body fat stored within the abdominal area and internal organs.

This type of fat causes abdominal obesity and is also associated with several health problems, like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Dr Emily Ventura and colleagues conducted a 16-week study on overweight Latino adolescents who were between 12 to 19 years old.

They tested if increasing fiber consumption and decreasing sugar intake have an effect on type 2 diabetes risk factors.

The study’s authors wrote:

“A reduction in visceral fat indicates a reduction in risk for type 2 diabetes, considering that to a greater degree than total body fat, visceral fat [fat surrounding the internal organs] has been shown to be negatively associated with insulin sensitivity.”

Those who increased fiber intake had a significant reduction in body mass index (-2 percent vs. 2 percent) and visceral adipose tissue (-10 percent vs. no change) compared with those who decreased fiber intake.”

Being overweight or obese are serious issues affecting adults and children around the world.

The World Health Organization reports that in 2016 over 1.9 billion adults were overweight and more than 650 million adults were obese.

The authors of this study wrote:

“Our results suggest that intensive interventions may not be necessary to achieve modifications in sugar and fiber intake.

Accordingly, nutritional guidance given in the primary care or community setting may be sufficient to promote the suggested dietary changes in some individuals.

In addition, policies that promote reduced intake of added sugar and increased intake of fiber could be effective public health strategies for the prevention of type 2 diabetes in this high-risk population.”

The study was published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (Ventura et al., 2009).

A glass of this drink a day can double weight loss.

Drinking a glass of fat-free milk each day can double weight loss, research finds.

People sometimes steer clear of dairy because they believe it is fattening — actually, the reverse may be true.

Milk contains both vitamin D and calcium, which have both been linked to weight loss.

About 50 percent of people are deficient in vitamin D and around 50 percent of obese people have a calcium deficiency.

Low calcium levels may prompt the brain to increase food intake to get more of this mineral.

One study tested the effects of drinking milk after weight-lifting.

Twenty women carried out resistance training, then drank either a sugary sports drink or a pint of fat-free milk.

Professor Stu Phillips, study co-author, said:

“Resistance training is not a typical choice of exercise for women.

But the health benefits of resistance training are enormous: It boosts strength, bone, muscular and metabolic health in a way that other types of exercise cannot.”

The results of the study showed that milk increased muscle mass and reduced fat.

A previous study has shown the same positive effect of milk on men’s muscles and body fat.

Professor Phillips said:

“We expected the gains in muscle mass to be greater, but the size of the fat loss surprised us.

We’re still not sure what causes this but we’re investigating that now.

It could be the combination of calcium, high-quality protein, and vitamin D may be the key, and, conveniently, all of these nutrients are in milk.”

Although they put on muscle, the women did not gain weight, Professor Phillips said:

“The women who drank milk gained barely any weight because what they gained in lean muscle they balanced out with a loss in fat.

Our data show that simple things like regular weightlifting exercise and milk consumption work to substantially improve women’s body composition and health.”

The study was published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise (Josse et al., 2010).

Study tests if diet or exercise is better for maintaining weight loss.

The best way to maintain weight loss in the long-term is through more exercise rather than less food, research finds.

People in the study maintained weight loss of 30 pounds or more for around ten years by being active.

They did more physical activity and expended more energy each day than those who were obese.

Successful weight loss maintainers did around 12,000 steps each day, compared with 6,500 by obese people.

In other words, successful weight loss maintainers ate more but burned it off through exercise.

Your activity levels matter a lot more than what you eat in the long term, the researchers concluded.

Dr Danielle Ostendorf, the study’s first author, said:

“This study addresses the difficult question of why so many people struggle to keep weight off over a long period.

By providing evidence that a group of successful weight-loss maintainers engages in high levels of physical activity to prevent weight regain — rather than chronically restricting their energy intake — is a step forward to clarifying the relationship between exercise and weight-loss maintenance.”

The study compared successful weight loss maintainers with one group of people with normal body weight and another group who were obese.

Successful weight loss maintainers did twice as many steps as people who were obese, the results showed.

Exercise clearly beat restricting calorie intake for maintaining weight loss.

The results are the same as those from an analysis of people who had been on the reality TV show “The Biggest Loser”.

Again, people who maintained their weight loss did so through increased activity.

Changes in diet had little effect on maintaining weight loss over the years after they finished the show.

Dr Victoria A. Catenacci, study co-author, said:

“Our findings suggest that this group of successful weight-loss maintainers are consuming a similar number of calories per day as individuals with overweight and obesity but appear to avoid weight regain by compensating for this with high levels of physical activity.”

The study was published in the journal Obesity (Ostendorf et al., 2019).

The foods make people feel 30 percent more full.

Pulses — which include peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas — help people lose weight without dieting, multiple studies find.

Adding a single daily serving of foods like these helps people lose weight without making changes to lifestyle or restricting diet.

A serving is three-quarters of a cup.

People in the studies lost weight without counting calories, keeping food diaries or exercising more.

However, adding these standard approaches can improve weight loss further.

Eating pulses is effective for weight loss because it improves feelings of fullness by 31 percent.

This is because the body takes longer to break pulses down (they have a low glycaemic index).

Other pulses include:

• Broad beans,
• runner beans,
• kidney beans,
• black-eyed peas,
• and butter beans.

Dr Russell de Souza, who led the Canadian study, said:

“Despite their known health benefits, only 13 per cent of Canadians eat pulses on any given day and most do not eat the full serving.

So there is room for most of us to incorporate dietary pulses in our diet and realize potential weight management benefits.”

The conclusions come from an analysis of 21 separate clinical trials.

The studies tested the effects of both adding pulses alone as well as restricting calories plus adding pulses.

Naturally, people lost more weight when they restricted their diet and ate more pulses, but pulses on their own were also effective.

On average, people lost around 0.5 pound in six weeks without dieting.

Dr de Souza said:

“Though the weight loss was small, our findings suggest that simply including pulses in your diet may help you lose weight, and we think more importantly, prevent you from gaining it back after you lose it.”

Pulses also help lower levels of bad cholesterol and the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Kim et al., 2016).

Certain foods help people sleep better and lose more weight.

A high-protein diet drives weight loss and the burning of belly fat, studies reveal.

Eating more lean meats and low-fat dairy leads to more weight loss than a standard calorie restricted diet, researchers have found.

Protein makes people feel more satisfied so they subsequently eat less.

Diets that have more protein are also linked to better sleep.

Sleeping better can also lead to more weight loss.

For the study, 130 overweight women were put on a calorie restricted diet.

Half, though, ate a restricted diet that was high in protein and dairy.

Dr Ellen Evans, study co-author, said:

“Essentially we substituted lean meats and low-fat milk, cheese, yogurt, etc., for some of the high-carbohydrate foods in the food-pyramid diet.

Participants also ate five servings of vegetables and two to three servings of fruit each day.”

The results showed that the women lost weight without losing bone mass.

Dr Evans said:

“This is an important finding because many people, especially women in mid-life, are concerned with both obesity and osteoporosis.

Furthermore, treating obesity often increases risk for osteoporosis.

Many people lose bone mass when they lose weight.”

People in the high protein group had better bone health despite their weight loss.

Dr Matthew Thorpe, the study’s’ first author, said:

“In the higher-protein group, bone density remained fairly stable, but bone health declined over time in the group that followed the conventional higher-carbohydrate diet.

A statistically significant treatment effect favored the higher-protein diet group.

The combination and/or interaction of dietary protein, calcium from dairy, and the additional vitamin D that fortifies dairy products appears to protect bone health during weight loss.”

The study was published in the Journal of Nutrition (Thorpe et al., 2008).

The supplement is found naturally in many healthy foods.

Some dietary supplements have been shown to improve weight loss by scientific research.

Indeed, one study has shown that inulin can help to quadruple weight loss.

People in the study lost 2.3 percent of their body weight after taking the supplement, compared with just 0.6 percent in the control group.

Inulin is a fibre found naturally in many foods, including leeks, wheat, onions, bananas and asparagus.

The natural fibre — which is also available as a supplement — works by reducing appetite.

It has a creamy consistency and is sometimes used in the food industry as a substitute for fat.

Inulin is low in calories, high in fibre and it can improve the health of the digestion.

Researcher repeatedly finds that an increases in fibre intake can help with weight loss.

The study included 44 overweight people with prediabetes who were tracked for 18 weeks.

Half were given 30g per day of inulin, while the other group were given a placebo.

Both saw the same level of weight loss over the first nine weeks.

But after that, the group taking inulin achieved a weight loss of 2.3 percent of their body weight in comparison to only 0.6 percent in the control group.

The study’s authors write:

“…the consumption of inulin enhances a traditional calorie-restricted lifestyle program.

An added benefit of the inulin supplement was a greater reduction in intrahepatocellular and intramyocellular lipid in the soleus muscle even after accounting for weight lost.”

Inulin seems to work by reducing appetite, the study’s authors write:

“…subjects taking inulin ate significantly less (~270 kcal less, p = 0.027) at the follow-up ad libitum meal, with no consequent rebound in food intake at the 18 week visit despite a total 7 % weight loss in the inulin group, suggesting that inulin’s effect on weight management is mediated via appetite modulation.”

The study was published in the journal Nutrition & Metabolism (Guess et al., 2015).

Once-a-week injection of this drug led overweight or obese people to lose more than a fifth of their weight.

A weekly injection of semaglutide, known as Ozempic, can reduce body weight by more than 20 percent, a study has found.

Semaglutide — which is now approved by the US FDA for weight management — is known as an anti-diabetic medication and typically prescribed in 1mg doses.

For this study, participants who were obese or overweight received a higher dose at 2.4 mg alongside a low calorie diet and increased physical activity.

Participants, on average, lost over 15 kg and more than 30 percent of people lost one-fifth of their weight — an equivalent of 20 percent.

The drug, like incretin, a natural hormone in our body, lowers blood sugar hence is prescribed for people with diabetes.

Professor Rachel Batterham, a senior author of the study, said:

“The findings of this study represent a major breakthrough for improving the health of people with obesity.

Three quarters (75%) of people who received semaglutide 2.4mg lost more than 10% of their body weight and more than one-third lost more than 20%.

No other drug has come close to producing this level of weight loss—this really is a gamechanger.

For the first time, people can achieve through drugs what was only possible through weight-loss surgery.”

Semaglutide, marketed as ozempic, can take over the regulating appetite system by mirroring the incretin hormone known as GLP-1 which reduces appetite and hunger.

The researchers believe the medication will help obese people to lose weight and so can lower the risk of severe illness from COVID-19 as well as diabetes and heart disease.

Professor Batterham said:

“The impact of obesity on health has been brought into sharp focus by COVID-19 where obesity markedly increases the risk of dying from the virus, as well as increasing the risk of many life-limiting serious diseases including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, liver disease and certain types of cancers.

This drug could have major implications for UK health policy for years to come.”

For this study, about 2,000 overweight or obese adults received an injection of 2.4mg semaglutide every week over a 14-month trial.

They were also given guidance and consultation on lifestyle changes about increasing physical activity and cutting down calories.

Participants on semaglutide lost 15.3kg of their weight with a -5.54 reduction in BMI, whereas those who didn’t receive the medication had a 2.6 kg weight loss with a -0.92 reduction in BMI.

Furthermore, the semaglutide group experienced a reduction in blood pressure, waist circumference, and blood sugar levels.

Professor John Wilding, the study’s first author, said:

“This is a significant advance in the treatment of obesity.

Semaglutide is already approved and used clinically at a lower dose for treatment of diabetes, so as doctors we are already familiar with its use.

For me this is particularly exciting as I was involved in very early studies of GLP1 (when I worked at the Hammersmith Hospital in the 1990s we were the first to show in laboratory studies that GLP1 affected appetite), so it is good to see this translated into an effective treatment for people with obesity.”

The study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine (Wilding et al., 2021).