People who are highly responsive to food — i.e., those who cannot resist food or stop thinking about it — benefited from a new alternative weight-loss intervention that focuses on improving an individual’s response to internal hunger cues and their ability to resist food.
This finding was reported by a team led by experts from the University of California San Diego and published in the online May 18, 2022 issue of JAMA Network Open.
Study and Participants
The Providing Adult Collaborative Interventions for Ideal Changes (PACIFIC) randomized clinical trial involved 271 adults aged 18 to 65.
Over a 12-month period, participants attended 26 group treatments and were all asked to engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate or vigorous-intensity physical activity per week.
The study compared a new intervention, called Regulation of Cues, with a standard behavioral weight loss program, a control group, and a combination of the Regulation of Cues intervention and the behavioral program.
Regulation of Cues Intervention
The Regulation of Cues intervention does not prescribe a specific diet. Instead, it aims to train individuals to eat based on natural hunger cues, rather than focusing on counting calories.
The intervention reinforces tolerance of food cravings and encourages individuals to resist the urge to consume highly palatable foods (those high in sugar, fat, salt, and flavorings) when not physically hungry.
Findings
Weight loss was found to be comparable among individuals in the Regulation of Cues intervention and those in the behavioral weight loss program after 24 months.
However, participants in the Regulation of Cues group were more successful at maintaining their weight loss, whereas those in the other groups began to regain weight when clinic visits were reduced to monthly.
Implications
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overweight and obesity are risk factors for several serious conditions, including heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer.
This makes effective weight loss interventions critically important.
The findings from the PACIFIC trial suggest that the Regulation of Cues intervention may be especially beneficial for individuals who struggle to resist food.
These results hint at the potential for personalized medicine approaches in the field of weight loss.
In the future, individuals who need help losing weight, particularly those who struggle with food responsiveness, may consider the Regulation of Cues program as an alternative, especially if traditional behavioral weight loss programs have been ineffective for them.
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The study was published in JAMA Network Open.
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