Weight Watchers And Jenny Craig Could Be The Best Diets For Weight Loss, Study Suggests
What Are The Best Diets To Aid Weight Loss?
Rachel Moss— The Huffington Post UK
|
From SlimFast to Weight Watchers, there's no shortage of diet plans available - but do any of them actually aid healthy weight loss?
In a bid to tackle the worldwide obesity epidemic, a new study examined popular diets to determine which were the most likely to help a dieter lose excess weight.
The researchers, from Johns Hopkins University, analysed over 4,200 weight-loss studies to draw their conclusions.
They found that of 32 major commercial weight-loss plans marketed nationwide, only 11 have been rigorously studied in randomised controlled trials - effectively meaning there is insufficient evidence to support whether or not many diets work.
Open Image Modal
The researchers then looked at the 11 diets - with sufficient evidence available - in depth.
Of these 11, the researchers found participants were likely to lose more weight over a 12-month period on just two programmes, than people who were either dieting on their own, got printed health information, or received other forms of education.
The two most effective diet programmes were found to be Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig.
Participants following low-calorie meal replacement plans were found to lose the greatest amount of weight in the first six months of dieting.
However, the only long-term study on such diets suggested there was no benefit of following a meal replacement plan after 12 months.
"Other popular programs, such as Nutrisystem, show promising weight loss results. However, additional studies evaluating long-term outcomes are needed."
The researchers hope medical experts will find their study helpful when recommending weight loss programmes to obese patients.
Kimberly Gudzune, assistant professor of medicine and a weight loss specialist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a statement: "Primary care doctors need to know what programmes have rigorous trials showing that they work, but they haven’t had much evidence to rely on.
“Our review should give clinicians a better idea of what programs they might consider for their patients.”
However, the popular diet was not included in the latest Johns Hopkins study.
Whichever diet you chose to follow, monitoring portion size and doing regular exercise is still important when trying to lose weight healthily.
Commenting on the Mediterranean diet research, Dr Alison Tedstone, chief nutritionist at Public Health England, said: "If you are currently overweight you will need to eat less to achieve a healthy weight and be active as part of a healthy lifestyle."
Celebrity Link: Bear Grylls has reportedly drunk his own urine (for his TV show).What's it all about? Urine Therapy, or urotherapy, includes the drinking of one's own urine for cosmetic or medical/wellbeing purposes. Some claim that the urea component of urine can have an anti-cancer effect.BDA Verdict: Literally, don't take the proverbial! Emergencies, only as Urine Therapy has no scientific evidence that it adds anything beneficial to the body and its safety has not been established. As for any anti-cancer claims made in favour of Urine Therapy, this is simply not backed up by scientific studies. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Paleo Diet(02 of05)
Open Image Modal
Celebrity Link: Miley Cyrus and Matthew McConaughey have reportedly followed this 'diet'What's it all about? The Paleo diet (also known as the Paleolithic Diet, the Caveman diet and the Stone Age Diet) is a diet where only foods presumed to be available to Neanderthals in the prehistoric era are consumed and all other foods, such as dairy products, grains, sugar, legumes, 'processed' oils, salt, and others like alcohol or coffee are excluded.BDA Verdict: Jurassic fad! A diet with fewer processed foods, less sugar and salt is actually a good idea, but unless for medical reason, there is absolutely no need to cut any food group out of your diet. In fact, by cutting out dairy completely from the diet, without very careful substitution, you could be in danger of compromising your bone health because of a lack of calcium. An unbalanced, time consuming, socially isolating diet, which this could easily be, is a sure-fire way to develop nutrient deficiencies, which can compromise health and your relationship with food. (credit:Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Sugar Free Diet(03 of05)
Open Image Modal
Celebrity Link: Tom Hanks and Alec Baldwin have reportedly followed this 'diet'.What's it all about? The Sugar Free Diet is when you exclude all types of sugar (and often all carbohydrates too) from your diet.BDA Verdict: Not a total sweetener for success! We encourage cutting down on free sugars, adding sugar or products already containing added sugar, in addition to being label aware, because as a nation, we consume too much sugar on the whole. Some versions of the Sugar Free Diet call for you to cut out all sugar from your diet which is not only almost impossible, but would mean cutting out foods like vegetables, fruit, dairy products, nuts – not exactly a healthy, balanced diet. Also beware, substitutes some of these plans recommend like agave, palm sugar or honey, are actually just sugar in another form and a huge contradiction. (credit:Greg Allen/AP)
VB6 Diet(04 of05)
Open Image Modal
Celebrity Link: Beyoncé and Dita Van Teeese have reportedly followed this 'diet'.What's it all about? The VB6 Diet (vegan before 6pm) of Chegan Diet (cheating vegan) is a diet that calls on you to follow a vegan eating plan most of the time/before 6pm, then after 6pm, nothing is off limits.DA Verdict: VB careful! By virtue, this should set you on course to eating during the day, at least, less processed food, more plant based foods like beans, pulses, wholegrains and nuts (watch your portion sizes) and much more fruit and vegetables which is a good thing overall as we should be aiming for at least 5 portion of fruit and veg a day and more fibre. Having said that, following a vegan diet doesn't automatically translate into a healthy diet. The danger here is, post-6pm becomes a window of opportunity to hoover up a myriad of foods high in calories, saturated fat and packed with added salt and sugar, undoing your earlier healthier choices. The reality is, eating different food groups at different times of the day doesn't matter, in terms of your health, its nutritional balance that's important. (credit:Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
The Clay Cleanse Diet(05 of05)
Open Image Modal
Celebrity Link: Zoe Kravitz has reportedly followed this 'diet'.What's it all about? A spoon of clay a day will remove toxins from the body and remove negative isotopes, helping you detox and stay in shape.BDA Verdict: Clay away from this diet! The Food Standards Agency issued a warning about clay after high levels of lead and arsenic were discovered in products saying: 'We remind consumers, especially pregnant women, about the dangers of ingesting clay, clay-based detox drinks and supplements'. The whole idea of detox is nonsense. The body is a well-developed system that has its own built-in mechanisms to detoxify and remove waste and toxins. Nuff said! (credit:Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)