User:Shujins/sandbox

Meal Replacement Edit

Weight Loss
There is evidence that the meal replacement diet have been shown to be effective on incurring weight loss and treating obesity. It has been found that the meal replacement diet is effective at lowering body weight, fat mass, and the amount of LDL cholesterol particles in obese individuals. Effects on weight loss can be seen within 12 weeks or 3 months for the short term. For the long term, meal replacement programs can maintain weight loss in overweight and obese individuals for 12 months but gradual weight gain can occur over the next 3 years, following up. The management and effectiveness of weight loss by meal replacement is dependent on the motivation and food environment that an individual is surrounded by.

A 2002 systematic review of randomized controlled studies that compared weight management using meal replacement strategies to reduced calorie diets found that subjects that used meal replacement strategies lost a significant amount of weight during the studies. The overweight and obese subjects were divided into two groups: the partial meal replacement program and the reduced calorie diet. Overweight and obese subjects that were put on a partial meal replacement program had greater significant weight loss than subjects that were put on a reduced calorie diet although both groups had significant weight loss. There was no significant difference in attrition rate between those in the partial meal replacement program or those on the reduced calorie diet at the 3 month mark for the studies. However, there was a greater attrition rate for the reduced calorie diet group than the partial meal replacement group at the 1 year mark.

Effects on Other Health-Related Illnesses
Meal replacements can be used to treat diabetes by maintaining weight loss. According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), meal replacement products can be used once or twice a day, in lieu of regular meals, to maintain weight loss for individuals with diabetes. However, that weight loss can only be maintained as long as the individual keeps up with the meal replacement plan. The effects of meal replacements on weight loss for individuals with mental illness are inconclusive. Studies have shown that participants of varying ages and each afflicted with a different mental illness such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and other mental illnesses were able to lose weight through a program of meal replacement shakes. However, the weight loss results only applied to a small minority of the participants that were able to follow study parameters and procedures. There was a high attrition rate with the vast majority of participants dropping out of the study due to either personal or psychiatric reasons or unwillingness to comply with the parameters of the study.

* The citations are the first five in the Reflist.