Victoria, British Columbia – A new study indicates that standard blood-coloured re-measurement methods may help identify people at high or low risk for future weight loss trials. Results were published today in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
Weight loss is an important component of health and well-being for people with diabetes, yet 44 per cent of adults have moderate or high levels of body weight, despite growing evidence of the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions to improve their wellbeing. Obesity is a serious global health problem that can not be managed without targeted intervention.
However, the majority of adults with diabetes do not achieve clinically meaningful weight loss, which poses a significant global health challenge. Perceptions among healthcare practitioners are that weight loss is less easy than eating.
Researchers first used a validated scale to assess obesity (defined as a BMI of 25-29.9 kg/m2 or more) and established that three-month-old adults have a normal BMI before weighing themselves at three months. After cleansing the gut microbiota, the gut microbiota, and intact plasma during the fasting period, participants were then administered a blood-based glucose monitoring system (F-GM) approach at the time of three-month-long fasting.
Serious differences after fasting said the team found did not not come from body fat percentage; within the group of individuals who achieved low blood glucose levels, only 9 per cent were obese.
The findings also show that people who were obese at the baseline did not gain weight during the three-month fasting periods, whereas those who achieved normal blood glucose value during fasting gained weight by 49 per cent over the course of the study.
Senior author Tarun Singhal, Associate Professor, University of Washington School of Medicine and lead author of the study, said, “The F-GM method we used to express the gut microbiota’s genetic information is commonly used to study animal genetics. We chose this approach because it has been shown to be robust and specific to the study population,” he added.
The analysis revealed a statistically significant advantage to using fasting markers with F-GM over other inputs. Specifically, moderate weight loss (BMI slightly above 25 kg/m2) in the fasting period showed a 12 per cent higher T-score (−9 vs 0.2, P less than .0001) and a 22 per cent lower BMI (BMI 22 kg/m2 versus 25 kg/m2, P less than .0001) at a median follow-up of 17 months.
The investigators also showed that the BMI to-E control (BMI of 25-30 kg/m2), also known as the T-met equation, significantly increased from −8.79 to 28.49 kg/m2 last year. Detection of higher or lower BMI, as well as a lower biological age, was significantly associated with a 10 1/m2 lower F-GM weight loss (P less than .01) and a 6 1/m2 lower onset of type 2 diabetes (P less than .001).With regard to type 2 diabetes, the investigators also showed a significant difference from the low-to-high category with respect to the T-score (−8.84 to −17, P less than .001), a difference that remained significant when calculating the individual-level biocrine index, defined as an individual-measurement score.
Given the small sample size and the comparatively short follow-up time, the report did not regard the results as statistically significant.
Dr. Singhal said:“Finding a long-term effect of the F-GM assay is important given a challenge with alcohol consumption. Through this, we provide a more precise and accurate measure of diet influenced obesity risk in the general population. We hope that this outcome can catalyze interest in the field and spark new directions for weight-loss research and clinical decision-making.”