Diabetes: Risky yo-yo effect

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MunichAfter the holidays come the good resolutions: abstaining from alcohol, more exercise, losing weight. But the latter in particular is often difficult to maintain - due to the so-called yo-yo effect, some diet candidates even put on weight in the end. A risky metabolism game.

Weight cycling is the name given to the weight fluctuations that many people who want to lose weight are familiar with: Although you lose some weight in the course of a low-calorie diet, you will hardly ever eat normally again afterwards, and the display on the scales will jump up again - and often exceed the initial value .

Body starts emergency program

The reason for this is an "emergency program" that the body starts when the calorie intake is suddenly and significantly reduced: It tries to save as much energy as possible by changing the hormonal balance. It lowers the basal metabolic rate and draws on alternative energy sources - for example, the body's own proteins from the muscles or the blood. If the diet is ended, the organism does not switch back immediately, but stores everything that it does not urgently need for operation in new fat reserves.

Yo-yo candidates are at the forefront of risk

Researchers have now shown that this significantly increases the risk of diabetes. And even more than even weight gain without intermediate attempts to lose weight with the yo-yo effect.

For their investigation, Jasmine Neamat-Allah's team from the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg evaluated data from a large nutritional study from the late 1990s. The scientists divided the test subjects into four groups: those with constant body weight, subjects who had either gained or lost over the observation period and those whose weight had gone up and down in the sense of a yo-yo effect.

It turned out that the risk of diabetes increased both in subjects who gained evenly in weight and in those with the yo-yo effect. In the former by 250 percent, in the yo-yo group by a third (30 percent). But in this group it was worth taking a closer look. If the weight increased above the starting value after the diet, the risk of diabetes was suddenly 80 percent higher than in those subjects who had gained weight without attempting to diet, the scientists calculated. Additional weight gain after weight loss seems to be by far the most damaging for the metabolism.

Losing weight sustainably is best

So if you want to prescribe a diet after the holidays, you should make sure that at least a little of the weight loss achieved survives the yo-yo effect. Even better is a moderate but long-term combination of a little more exercise and a little less food. It doesn't work as quickly, but it is all the more lasting - and definitely reduces the risk of developing diabetes. (jr)

Source: J. Neamat-Allah et al .: "Results from the Obesity Competence Network on the Association of Weight Cycling with the Risk of Diabetes and Cardiovascular Diseases" (DAG Symposium Nov. 2014)

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