Are you harming your health by yo-yo dieting?
We all know crash diets don’t work in the long-term– and now there’s even more reason to ditch the cycle forever, as research links fluctuating weight to serious heart problems. Lisa Salmon reports
IT’S likely you will have put on weight over the festive season – and equally likely you’ll struggle to lose it.
But many people will still embark on New Year diets, possibly losing a bit of timber, and then putting it back on again, in the classic yo-yo fashion.
However, although such yoyoing is very common, new research suggests it could also be dangerous.
DEATH RISK
A US study found women in the ‘normal weight’ range who lost and regained weight had about a three-and-ahalf times higher risk of sudden cardiac death – where the heart’s electrical system abruptly stops working – than women whose weight remained stable.
Yo-yo dieting was also associated with a 66% increased risk of death from coronary heart disease, where blood vessels to the heart become blocked with fat, in the normal weight women.
The research, which studied more than 158,000 post-menopausal women over an 11.4year period, didn’t find an increase in either type of death among overweight or obese women who yo-yo dieted, otherwise known as ‘weight cycling’.
“Weight cycling is an emerging global health concern associated with attempts at weight loss, but there have been inconsistent results about the health hazards for those who experience weight cycling behaviour,” said Dr Somwail Rasla, lead author of the study at Brown University.
WHAT’S GOING ON?
The research didn’t explain how yo-yo dieting might increase the risk of death, but Dr Rasla suggests it could be connected to the possibility that, as people gain weight, cardiac risk factors, such as blood pressure and glucose levels, often increase, and the body eventually makes adjustments to compensate for the changes.
But when people yo-yo diet, the body may not have time to adjust.
Another theory, developed after a trial using mice, suggests yo-yo dieting may have an impact on DNA.
“We have found that mice exposed to weight cycling behaviours ended up with damage to their DNA,” notes Dr Rasla.
DON’T DITCH THE DIET!
However, if you’re overweight, it’s not wise to completely abandon diets either, as evidence shows that being overweight in mid-life also in- creases the risk of dying from both types of heart disease.
The best solution, therefore, has to be to embark upon a healthy diet which aims to achieve a steady, regular, small weight loss, rather than the rapid, major loss that a crash diet aims for.
Nutritionist Cassandra Barns points out that as well as negatively impacting physical health, crash diets followed by weight gain can affect mental health, leading to guilt and low self-esteem.
“This can result in an unhealthy relationship with food,” she warns.
“Also, when our weight fluctuates regularly, we often diminish muscle mass, which is crucial for a high metabolic rate when resting.”