A couple of years ago I wrote an article on weight loss.  While that information is still good, I thought I’d update and add some new information. 

An article published in Sleep this month looked at nightly sleep duration and weight.  They followed 276 adults between the ages of 21 and 64 for 6 years.  They compared people who slept 7-9 hours to those who averaged both shorter and longer amounts of sleep per night.  The risk of gaining 5kg (10+ lbs) was increased by 35% in those who slept shorter, and 25% in those who slept longer, than the 7-9 hours.  Moral of the story, your mom was right, 8 hours of sleep a night is best!

There were a couple of recent review articles published in American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine about ways for us (physicians) to help our patients lose weight and follow a healthier lifestyle.  Basically, if we as physicians talk to our patients about the importance of regular exercise and weight loss, it will sometimes stick.  In any case, it does seem to motivate our patients more than if we don’t say anything.  They have some recommendations which I thought might be helpful.  Exercising with friends, keeping food diaries, and regular weight checks, (both at home and an outside location) can be helpful.  For instance, I have several patients who come in regularly, monthly or quarterly for weight checks.  Use the web to help, there are several excellent calorie counters available, some free, and some associated with a cost.  Another recommended website is www.americaonthemove.org to track progress. 

Last month a study was published in JAMA to look for a good strategy to sustain weight loss.  Losing weight is easy compared to keeping it off, so this in an important issue.  They put 1032 people into the same weight loss program for 6 months, then they were put into 1 of 3 groups.  The 3 groups consisted of either monthly personal contact, access to computer based interventions, or they were on their own.  The average initial weight loss was 8.5 kg (about 18lbs), and all groups regained at least some of the weight back.  After 2 ½ years, most had kept some weight off, but the one that did the best was the personal contact group.  The computer and on your own groups were about the same.  A few years ago a study was published concluding that Weight Watchers maintained weight loss better than several other popular diets at the time.  The Weight Watchers program recommends regular contact indefinitely.  This study supports the usefulness of that approach.

A very controversial study was published in 9/07 in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism looking at the efficacy of “Topical Fat Reduction” measures.  They used aminophylline cream, which has been used for years both topically, and injected into the skin (which is called mesotherapy) allegedly to dissolve fat and treat cellulite.  It was a small study, only 50 people, and they were all put on a 1200 cal/day diet and a walking program.  Half was given the cream, the other half did nothing additional.  After 12 weeks, BMI had gone down about the same amount in both groups, but the aminophylline group’s waist circumference went down 11cm, while the other group only went down 5cm.  Whether this is significant or not is hard to say.  The number of patients is very small, and there is the possibly of investigator bias.  I have looked at this personally as an adjunct to my cosmetic practice, and have not been impressed with results in the past.   I am a little skeptical, but am willing to keep an open mind.
A recent study looked at weight (actually BMI – body mass index) and age at menopause.  They measured BMI in 1,583 women at the ages of 15, 20, 26, and 43 years old.  Interestingly, the average BMI increased with age from 20.6 to 25.2.  (It’s good to know I’m not the only one who’s gained weight since I was a teenager!)  The study found no overall association between BMI and age at natural menopause.  The one exception was that women who were underweight at age 36 did have earlier menopause than the other women in the study.

A bunch of relatively random facts, but hopefully you can get some useful information out of this.

To your good health,
Jasmine Moghissi, MD