Study finds elderly dieters not damaging health
Source: Agencies |
August 4, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
DIETING to lose weight may not help older overweight adults to live any longer, but losing a little weight on purpose also does not seem to cause any harm, according to a study.
Previous studies had raised concerns that losing weight might be harmful to older adults, since some research had linked dropping weight to a higher rate of death.
"There is a general sense in geriatrics ... that weight loss is a bad thing," said study author Stephen Kritchevsky, at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
"There's been a little bit of a conundrum on whether it's a wise thing or not to ask an overweight older adult to lose weight."
But Kritchevsky added that research linking older adults and weight loss to the higher rates of death may be due to the fact that unintentional weight loss in the elderly is often due to an underlying illness.
For the study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Kritchevsky and his colleagues looked at data from a past study of overweight and obese adults with high blood pressure, some of whom had received training to help them lose weight and keep it off.
Those in the weight-loss group lost close to 10 pounds, on average, while those told to modify the salt content in their diets or not change their diets at all lost two pounds.
Twelve years later, the researchers used national death records to figure out which of the participants were still alive. By then they would have been in their late 70s, on average.
Out of 600 people split between the weight-loss and non-weight-loss programs, about 50 died in each group. When researchers took into account factors such as age, race and smoking, participants assigned to lose weight were no more or less likely to die during the follow-up than those not in the weight-loss group.
Kritchevsky said the findings were a "reassuring message that weight loss is potentially beneficial regardless of your age, if you're overweight or obese."
Previous studies had raised concerns that losing weight might be harmful to older adults, since some research had linked dropping weight to a higher rate of death.
"There is a general sense in geriatrics ... that weight loss is a bad thing," said study author Stephen Kritchevsky, at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
"There's been a little bit of a conundrum on whether it's a wise thing or not to ask an overweight older adult to lose weight."
But Kritchevsky added that research linking older adults and weight loss to the higher rates of death may be due to the fact that unintentional weight loss in the elderly is often due to an underlying illness.
For the study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Kritchevsky and his colleagues looked at data from a past study of overweight and obese adults with high blood pressure, some of whom had received training to help them lose weight and keep it off.
Those in the weight-loss group lost close to 10 pounds, on average, while those told to modify the salt content in their diets or not change their diets at all lost two pounds.
Twelve years later, the researchers used national death records to figure out which of the participants were still alive. By then they would have been in their late 70s, on average.
Out of 600 people split between the weight-loss and non-weight-loss programs, about 50 died in each group. When researchers took into account factors such as age, race and smoking, participants assigned to lose weight were no more or less likely to die during the follow-up than those not in the weight-loss group.
Kritchevsky said the findings were a "reassuring message that weight loss is potentially beneficial regardless of your age, if you're overweight or obese."
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