Some People Maintain Weight Loss While Other Regain

An interesting study that aims at finding out how some people successfully lose weight and maintain it while others regain over a period of time. 

Have you ever wondered how some people successfully lose weights and maintain it, while others tend to regain the weight?

Researchers at The Miriam Hospital say that this tendency is caused due to a difference in brain activity patterns.

They indicated that when individuals who had kept the maintained weight loss for several years were shown pictures of food, they were more likely to involve the areas of the brain connected with behavioral control and visual attention than with obese and normal weight participants.

The findings of this study suggest that those who are successful in maintaining weight loss may learn to respond differently to food cues. The findings shed some light on the biological factors that may contribute to weight loss maintenance. It also suggests that these people monitor their food intake closely and exhibit restraint in their food choices.

Maintaining long-term weight loss continues to be a major hurdle in obesity treatment. Participants in behavioral weight loss programs shed an average weight of 8 to 10 percent during the first six months of treatment, and after one year they tend to maintain approximately two-thirds of their weight loss. But despite these intensive honest efforts they tend to regain the weight for the next several years thereby returning to their baseline weight after 5 years.

The researchers involved the use of functional magnetic resource imaging (FMRI) to study the brain activity of three groups- 18 participants of normal weight, 16 participants who were obese (defined as a body mass index of at least 30), and 17 participants who have lost at least 30 lbs and have successfully maintained that weight loss for a minimum of three years.

When all these participants were shown pictures of food items after a being made to fast for 4 hours, it was observed that those in the successful weight loss maintenance group reacted differently to these pictures than the other participants the groups.

Researchers found powerful signals in the left superior frontal region and right middle temporal region of the brain – a pattern that is unchanging with greater preventive control to pictures of food and greater visual attention to food cues. The Researches thereby suggested that these brain responses may lead to preventive or corrective behaviors with respect to eating habits that effectively aid in long-term weight control. However, research should continue in this filed to determine whether these reactions are inherent within an individual or they can be altered.

This interesting study has been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.