The role of the Mediterranean diet on weight loss and obesity-related diseases
- PDF / 737,288 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 38 Downloads / 202 Views
The role of the Mediterranean diet on weight loss and obesity-related diseases Ramon Estruch 1,2
&
Emilio Ros 1,3
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Pandemic obesity is a major public health problem because of its association with non-communicable diseases and all-cause mortality, which can be improved/delayed with weight loss. Thus, several scientific societies and governments have launched guidelines to reduce body weight and adiposity or, at least, to avoid weight gain. In spite of the abundant literature on the topic, there is still controversy on the relative roles of fat and carbohydrate in the diet on weight gain. Present recommendations to avoid weight gain and obesity are directed to reduce intake of total energy variably and of total fat to energy expenditure [13]. Thus, the total amount of calories consumed is the main component of this equation and the first target for losing weight or avoiding weight gain is to reduce total calorie intake. The importance of energy intake for weight control was verified in Cuba in the decade of 1990s, when the country suffered a deep economic crisis due in great part to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which had largely supported Cuban economy until that time. During this period, the Cuban population, subject to scanty rationed foods, showed a rapid decrease of body weight, with an average populationwide loss of 5.5 kg, followed by a weight rebound that exceeded pre-crisis levels when food supply resumed [14]. Following the same rationale, and presumably owing to the higher caloric density of fat compared with other macronutrients such as carbohydrate and protein, high-fat diets have often been incriminated as responsible for weight gain and obesity [15–17]. However, the structure of the dietary fatty acids, chain length, and degree of unsaturation, as well as the position and configuration of the double bonds in the fatty acid molecules, differentially influence metabolic oxidation rates and fat deposition [16]. Thus, in both animal and human studies, monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) appear to favor weight loss compared to saturated fatty acids (SFA) [16]. Similarly, n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) have higher oxidation rates than SFA [18], and PUFA from fish oil can reduce fat mass gain [19] and increase weight loss, at least in rodents [20]. However, epidemiological studies have yielded conflicting results, since some studies have reported a direct association between SFA, MUFA, and PUFA intakes and BMI [21, 22], whereas others have described an inverse association between the high-fat, high-MUFA Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) and BMI [23, 24]. These discrepancies may be explained by possible residual confounding factors, such as physical activity, synergies with other foods and bioactive compounds, and difficulties to capture total energy intake using food questionnaires, among others, which could in theory affect the observed associations [16]. At
Rev Endocr Metab Disord
any rate, reducing total e
Data Loading...
