YOYO WEIGHT CYCLING HARMFUL
Report #7022; 2/4/97
Don't start a diet to lose weight unless you feel that you can stay on the diet forever. Repeatedly losing and gaining weight will shorten your life.
Restricting calories causes you to feel hungry all the time. No healthy human willingly leaves the table hungry after each meal and goes to bed hungry each night. Recent research shows that food restriction causes binges which set you up for repeatedly losing and gaining weight (1). Steven Blair of the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas reports that men who are always dieting have increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes (2). People who repeatedly lose and gain weight are more than twice as likely to suffer heart attacks and premature death (3). Every time that you gain weight rapidly, your liver makes extra fat that can block and stiffen arteries to cause heart attacks and high blood pressure.
It's also dangerous to lose weight rapidly. Every time you lose weight rapidly, you increase your chances of forming gall stones (4). Your liver removes breakdown products of metabolism from your blood-stream and converts them to bile which is stored in your gall bladder. Bile contains cholesterol which can form gall stones// and bile acids which keep the cholesterol soluble so it does not form stones. Bile acids are formed from the food that you eat. When you restrict food, your liver reduces its production of bile acids, causing cholesterol to form stones.
The only non-drug way to restrict calories without feeling hungry is to eat a high fiber, low-fat diet based on whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables. Whole grains swell with water and distend your intestines, making you feel full for several hours after you eat them.
By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News
1) J Polivy. Psychological consequences of food restriction. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 96: 6(JUN 1996): 589-592. self-imposed dieting appear to result in eating binges once food is available and in psychological manifestations such as preoccupation with food and eating, increased emotional responsiveness and dysphoria, and distractibility.
2) Steve Blair American Heart Association's annual epidemiology meeting March 20, 1994.
3) NEJM June 27, 1991. 4) RL Gebhard, WF Prigge, HJ Ansel, L Schlasner, SR Ketover, D Sande, K Holtmeier, FJ Peterson. The role of gallbladder emptying in gallstone formation during diet-induced rapid weight loss. Hepatology 24: 3 (SEP 1996): 544-548.
Health Reports from The Dr. Gabe Mirkin Show and DrMirkin.com