Health & Medicine
Non-Medical Treatments Can Be Effective For Weight Loss
Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Nov 06, 2014 07:06 PM EST
Diet and exercise play an important role in staying healthy and losing weight, alike. However, sometimes, much of the process can also be mental. Recent findings published in JAMA.
Researchers at the Penn's Center for Weight and Eating Disorders examined more than 3,000 study abstracts to evaluate the effectiveness of weight loss counseling and found that this type of nonmedical treatment can be effective, particularly when combined with diet and exercise.
"There's a good reason that we couldn't find any studies," said Thomas Wadden, the director of the Penn's Center for Weight and Eating Disorders NBC Philadelphia, in a news release. "Primary care practitioners are among the busiest people in the world, taking care of just so many different health problems that they encounter each day. So I really don't think that they have time to meet weekly or every other week to provide weight loss counseling."
For the study, researchers analyzed more than 3,000 study abstracts to evaluate the effectiveness of weight loss counseling and meetings for overweight or obese patients.
Throughout their work, they primarily focused on how weight loss counseling in obese individuals held the greatest benefit when combined with diet and exercise.
"I think we're going to see an increasing use of call centers in disease-management programs," Wadden concluded. "You potentially will be talking on the phone in Philadelphia with someone who is in Iowa, helping you with your weight control."
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First Posted: Nov 06, 2014 07:06 PM EST
Diet and exercise play an important role in staying healthy and losing weight, alike. However, sometimes, much of the process can also be mental. Recent findings published in JAMA.
Researchers at the Penn's Center for Weight and Eating Disorders examined more than 3,000 study abstracts to evaluate the effectiveness of weight loss counseling and found that this type of nonmedical treatment can be effective, particularly when combined with diet and exercise.
"There's a good reason that we couldn't find any studies," said Thomas Wadden, the director of the Penn's Center for Weight and Eating Disorders NBC Philadelphia, in a news release. "Primary care practitioners are among the busiest people in the world, taking care of just so many different health problems that they encounter each day. So I really don't think that they have time to meet weekly or every other week to provide weight loss counseling."
For the study, researchers analyzed more than 3,000 study abstracts to evaluate the effectiveness of weight loss counseling and meetings for overweight or obese patients.
Throughout their work, they primarily focused on how weight loss counseling in obese individuals held the greatest benefit when combined with diet and exercise.
"I think we're going to see an increasing use of call centers in disease-management programs," Wadden concluded. "You potentially will be talking on the phone in Philadelphia with someone who is in Iowa, helping you with your weight control."
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone