Exercise An Important Component in The Treatment and Prevention of Obesity |Biomedgrid

Dietary intervention can use either calorie dilution or calorie restriction and both have been an important arm in the management of obesity, with calorie restriction having the additional advantage of increasing longevity [1]. In general, in humans' dietary intervention has been partially successful in the short term but most participants regain significant weight after 12 -18 months. Exercise has therefore been added as an extra arm in the management of obesity in an attempt to prevent the weight gain [1,2]. Calorie dilution has been a successful dietary intervention causing greater weight loss than calorie restriction but does not have the other benefits of calorie restriction such as increasing longevity [1]. Weight loss results in bodily adaptations that include increasing appetite and decreasing energy expenditure [2] adding to the problem of maintaining weight loss long term and treatment requires continued attention and long-term maintenance visits [2]. Exercise alone has not been successful in achieving weight loss in the overweight/obese but needs to be an integral part of their management program because it provides significant benefits in aerobic fitness, preservation of lean body mass, improved cardiovascular fitness, insulin sensitivity, control of type 2 diabetes and blood pressure [3] even though it does not cause more than minimal weight loss [3]. It appears that once established weight gain is difficult to reverse long term with either exercise or diet or a combination of both.