One year follow-up of overweight and obese hypertensive adults following intensive lifestyle therapy.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the long-term effect on weight maintenance and dietary habits of participants in a clinical trial for weight loss.


METHODS
Community-based residents living in Maryland.


METHODS
Forty-four hypertensive, overweight adults who participated in a randomized clinical trial of weight loss. Participants were randomized to an intensive 'lifestyle' intervention or a 'monitoring' group.


METHODS
Weight, self-reported current intake of fat and fruit/fibre and self-reported barriers to maintain weight loss were assessed 1 year after the completion of the Diet, Exercise and Weight-loss Intervention Trial (DEW-IT) trial.


METHODS
t-tests were used to compare groups for differences in continuous variables and chi-square tests were used to compare groups for categorical variables.


RESULTS
Fourty-two of the 44 DEW-IT subjects participated in the follow-up study. Overall, 55% (12/19) of the lifestyle intervention group remained at or below their baseline weight at 1 year, compared with 48% (11/23) of the monitoring group (P = 0.32). However, during that year, 95% (18/19) of the lifestyle intervention group and 52% (12/23) of the monitoring group gained weight from the end of the study. Both groups reported similar intake of fruits/vegetables (servings day(-1)), dietary fibre (g day(-1)) and fat (g day(-1)).


CONCLUSIONS
The majority of participants who lost weight during the trial regained weight during the course of 1 year. A successful intensive 2-month programme of lifestyle modification (DEW-IT) was ineffective for long-term maintenance of weight loss.
Jehn
M L
ML
Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA. megan.jehn@asu.edu
Patt
M R
MR
Appel
L J
LJ
Miller
E R
ER
D004038:Diet, Reducing; D004043:Dietary Fiber / Q000008:administration & dosage; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005638:Fruit; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014675:Vegetables; D015431:Weight Loss