Hormones Are To Blame For The Yo-yo Effect Of Diets
Author: Victoria Aly
Time for reading: ~1
minutes
Last Updated:
August 08, 2022
Weight loss will be followed by hunger hormones that signal the body that it needs to eat - a "commandment" that is difficult to resist.
The yo-yo effect of diets is due to hostility on the part of our body, according to Australian scientists from the University of Melbourne.
They found that overweight people, who had lost at least 10% of their body weight and managed to maintain their weight for a year, produced high levels of hunger- inducing hormones .
As a result, their bodies "report" that they need to eat more and more, which is what is happening.
For their study, the researchers recruited a total of 50 people, overweight or obese. They take part in a 10-day program to determine the effects of weight loss on the bodies of volunteers. 34 of them managed to lose 10% of their weight.
Part of the program includes intake of 500-550 calories per day, with one of the main meals being replaced by eating only vegetables for a period of 8 weeks. Participants managed to lose an average of about 13 pounds over a 10-week period.
The analyzes found good news - at the end of the study the participants weighed less than at the beginning. The bad thing, however, is that in a period of one year, they regain half of the lost weight.
When analyzing blood samples from participants, the researchers found different levels of leptin and ghrelin compared to the beginning of the program. These are hormones known to increase appetite. According to experts, mainly the chemicals in our body make it difficult to fight excess weight and obesity .
Usually people blame themselves when the old pounds come back. However, they are not to blame, as this is a coordinated physiological system designed to regain the lost weight, experts explain.
In fact, hormones are a kind of survival mechanism and they are the main reason for unsuccessful battles with excess weight.
The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine .
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