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Every Little Pound Counts
When it comes to losing weight, a little bit can mean a lot.
A modest weight loss of 5% to 10% of body weight can lower blood pressure and provide other health benefits even to very obese patients, according to an article in the May issue of the journal Obesity Research. However, patients don't always listen when their doctors try to give them that message, one obesity expert tells WebMD.
"If a patient weighs 300 pounds and then loses 30 pounds, the doctor says, 'That's great. You've lost 10% of your weight and reduced your blood pressure,'" says Arthur Frank, MD, medical director of the weight management program at George Washington University in Washington. "But the patient says, 'I still weigh 270 pounds.'"
In the article, Ilse L. Mertens and Luc F. Van Gaal, of the department of endocrinology at the University Hospital of Antwerp in Belgium, examined a number of studies that looked at the effect of modest weight loss on blood pressure and other health problems.
In one such study, a group of high blood pressure patients all discontinued their medication; one group made no other changes while the other group lost nearly eight pounds. At the end of the study, nearly two-thirds of the high blood pressure patients who lost weight still had normal blood pressure, despite taking no medication. Only 35% of the patients who made no other lifestyle changes still had normal blood pressure.
"A modest weight loss ... significantly reduced the risk for high blood pressure," the authors write. "These results suggest that, in adults and in the elderly, modest weight loss is an effective ... therapy for the treatment of hypertension."
In addition to a potential decline in blood pressure, the authors note that several large studies have linked modest weight loss in obese women with a reduction in the development of diabetes, as well as a reduction in deaths due to various other causes, such as heart disease.
That's a message that more doctors need to spread, says Frank. "We have to reinforce the value of a modest weight loss."
Cultural pressures have prevented many obese patients from considering the value of even a small weight loss, according to the authors of the study. The authors point out that patients often have unrealistic expectations about their ideal weights.
One easy way to educate patients about the effects of modest weight loss would be for more physicians to measure and discuss their patients' body mass index, or BMI, according to George Blackburn, MD, director of the Center for the Study of Nutrition Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "Certainly physicians know their responsibility as far as the patient's cholesterol is concerned. And they know their patient's blood pressure, but they don't realize that the most important vital sign they're not recording is BMI."
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