Not your fault! Hormones linked to weight

ANY dieter knows that it's hard to keep off weight you've lost. Now an Australian study has found that even a year after dieters have shed a good chunk of weight quickly, their hormones are still crying out, "Eat! Eat! Eat!"

The findings suggest that dieters who have regained weight are not just slipping back into old habits, but are struggling against a persistent biological urge.

"People who regain weight should not be harsh on themselves, as eating is our most basic instinct," Joseph Proietto from the University of Melbourne says. He's the author of the study published in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Weight regain is a common problem for dieters. To study what drives it, Mr Proietto and his colleagues enrolled 50 overweight or obese patients in a 10-week diet program in Australia.

They wanted to see what would happen in people who lost at least 10 per cent of their body weight. Ultimately, only 34 people lost that much and stuck with the study long enough for analysis.

The program was intense. On average, the participants lost almost 13.6kg during the 10 weeks, faster than the standard advice of losing half to kilo a week. They took in 500 to 550 calories a day, using a meal replacement called Optifast plus vegetables for eight weeks. Then for two weeks they were gradually reintroduced to ordinary foods.

Despite counseling and written advice about how to maintain their new weights, they gained an average of 5.4kg back over the next year. So they were still at lower weights than when they started.

The scientists checked the blood levels of nine hormones that influence appetite. The key finding came from comparing the hormone levels from before the weight-loss program to one year after it was over. Six hormones were still out of whack in a direction that would boost hunger.

The dieters also rated themselves as feeling hungrier after meals at the one-year mark, compared to what they reported before the diet program began.

Experts not connected to the study said the persistent effect on hormone levels was not surprising, and that it probably had nothing to do with the speed of the weight loss.

People who lose less than 10 per cent of body weight would probably show the same thing, though to a lesser degree, said Dr George Bray of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

A key message of the study is that "it's better not to gain weight than to try to lose it", Dr Bray said.

Why would a dieter's body rebel against weight loss? It's an evolutionary holdover from earlier times, when weight loss could threaten survival and reproduction, says Dr Rudolph Leibel, an obesity expert at Columbia University in New York.

So "it's not surprising at all" that our bodies would fight back for at least a year, he said. "This is probably a more or less permanent response".

People who lose significant weight not only gain bigger appetite but also burn fewer calories than normal, creating "a perfect storm for weight regain", Dr Leibel said.

He said avoiding weight regain appears to be a fundamentally different problem from losing weight in the first place, and that researchers should pay more attention to it.

The study was supported by the Australian Government, medical professional groups and a private foundation. Mr Proietto served on a medical advisory board of Nestle, maker of Optifast, until last year.

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Mrs Obama accused of gluttony

She does not practice what she preaches

MICHELLE OBAMA is now furious with Southern cooking queen PAULA DEEN for crowing that the first lady, a healthy-eat­ing advocate who’s waging a war against childhood obesity, pigs out on fattening foods.

While plugging her new book, “Paula Deen’s Southern Cooking Bible,” the feisty TV chef took a pot shot at Michelle for gorging herself on greasy french fries, fatty hot chicken wings and sug­ary deep-fried Snickers bars!

“Michelle’s spitting mad,” a source told The ENQUIRER. “She thinks Paula is trying to smear her and her family just as the 2012 presidential election race swings into gear.”

The trouble first be­gan before Barack Obama was even elected president in 2008, when Michelle made a guest appearance on Deen’s popular “Paula’s Party” show and revealed that fried shrimp was her family’s favorite meal.

Then in an interview af­ter filming the program, Paula quipped that Michelle would be serving high-fat, greasy and sugary foods in the White House if Obama won the elec­tion!

Now Paula is rehashing those at­tacks on Michelle in an attempt to plug her latest cookbook and offset Michelle’s new book about eating healthy, noted the source.

“She’s no different than the rest of us,” Paula said about Michelle in a new interview. Paula added: “She probably ate more than any other guest I ever had on the show! She kept eating even dur­ing commercials. Know what (the Obamas’) favorite foods are? Hot wings. Y’know – those kinds of foods that aren’t necessarily top-of-the-list healthy foods.”

“Michelle now deeply regrets ever being on Paula’s show,” added the source. “There are a lot of digs she would have been able to brush off, but portray­ing her as a high-calorie gorger during her crusade for healthy eating is crossing the line.”

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