It seems that weight loss in men often has better and faster results than women. Recently, a study on the issue of diet has once again confirmed that to be true.
In the study, published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, the researchers followed more than 2,000 obese adults with prediabetes from places like Europe, Australia and New Zealand. (Pre-diabetes, also known as pre-diabetes – refers to patients with mildly elevated blood sugar levels, who are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes).
For eight consecutive weeks, the volunteers had to follow a diet of 800 calories a day, consisting mainly of liquids such as soups and hot cereals, along with 375 grams of low-calorie vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce. . As a result, 35% of the participants returned to normal blood sugar levels and no longer had prediabetes.
Scientists measured that the average male lost 11.8kg, while the female this figure was only 10.2kg. In addition, they found that men not only lost more total weight, but also lost better than women in other areas: lower heart rate, lower body fat, diabetes risk. and also lower metabolic syndrome.
Accordingly, metabolic syndrome is a group of symptoms related to high blood pressure, BMI,… that appear at the same time, increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
In addition, a low-calorie diet also significantly affects many other things on our bodies. For example, when compared to men, women who ate 800 calories a day had fewer healthy levels of HDL cholesterol – a change that can be harmful to the heart, along with a significant reduction in cholesterol. in terms of bone mineral density (BMD) and muscle mass, making the body weaker. But in return, their hip size decreased faster than men.
Elizabeth Lowden, MD, an endocrinologist at the Center for Nutrition and Weight Loss Surgery at Delnor Hospital in Geneva, Illinois, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science. for any man can lose weight faster than women.
The gender difference is the decisive factor in weight loss and health improvement.
She said that because men have a higher metabolic rate and more muscle than women, in daily activities, men tend to consume more calories, especially when all the volunteers are eating. following the 800 calorie per day regimen, faster weight loss is inevitable.
Now, research has taken a huge step forward in finding different metabolic effects between the diets of men and women. Since a man’s midsection contains a lot of fat surrounding the internal organs, it usually has a lot of weight. And when that amount of visceral fat is reduced, the body will improve metabolism, helping them to expend more energy.
In women, fat often accumulates just under the skin of the thighs, buttocks and hips – vital organs for reproduction. When we lose subcutaneous fat, Lowden says, it won’t improve the metabolic syndrome risk factors mentioned above, simply because that type of fat isn’t involved. metabolically.
However, she also recognized that one of the limitations of the study was that it did not clearly show whether some of the women involved had gone through menopause. Because after menopause, women tend to store more fat around the mid-body area similar to men. At that time, their body will have more metabolically active fat, which greatly affects the research results.
Another limitation of this study is that the findings only focused on short-term changes, making it impossible to be sure whether the weight loss and health benefits achieved can be sustained over a long period of time. Are not.
Still, Lowden asserts, for overweight men and women, even if the diet offers different health effects, weight loss is always beneficial.