![]() ![]() For example, in an earlier study Stevens found that losing as little as five pounds can reduce the risk of developing high blood pressure by 20 percent. If we all lost just nine pounds, like the majority of people in this study did, our nation would see vast decreases in hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease and stroke," said study co-author Victor Stevens, Ph.D., a Kaiser Permanente researcher. "More than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. More than two-thirds of the participants (69 percent) lost at least nine pounds, enough to reduce their health risks and qualify for the second phase of the study, which lasted 30 months and tested strategies for maintaining the weight loss. After six months, the average weight loss among the nearly 1,700 participants was approximately 13 pounds. In addition to keeping food diaries and turning them in at weekly support group meetings, participants were asked to follow a heart-healthy DASH (a Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low-fat or non-fat dairy, attend weekly group sessions and exercise at moderate intensity levels for at least 30 minutes a day. It seems that the simple act of writing down what you eat encourages people to consume fewer calories." "Those who kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who kept no records. "The more food records people kept, the more weight they lost," said lead author Jack Hollis Ph.D., a researcher at Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore. In this study, the majority of African American participants lost at least nine pounds of weight, which is higher than in previous studies. African Americans have a higher risk of conditions that are aggravated by being overweight, including diabetes and heart disease. Funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health, the study is one of the few studies to recruit a large percentage of African Americans as study participants (44 percent). ![]()
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