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American Morning
All Major Fad Diets Have Relatively Low Good Results
Aired November 10, 2003 - 09:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Four of the most popular diets all take different approaches to weight-loss. But, surprisingly, they all work.
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is at the CNN Center with much more on that. Elizabeth, good morning again.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
They all worked but only to a certain extent. Let's take a look at those four diets. The four diets in the study were Atkins, Dean Ornish, Weight Watchers and the Zone. A hundred and sixty patients were divided into four groups and put on the diet.
And here's the really bad news, unfortunately, is that many of them dropped out. The patients who were on Atkins and Ornish, 50 percent of them dropped out before the study was over in that one year. So that's half of the patients leaving before the study was over because they just couldn't stay on the diet.
On Weight Watchers and Zone, 35 percent of the patients dropped out. Those are huge dropout rates. They just couldn't stay on the diets.
Let's look at the results for the people who did manage to stay on the diets. For the ones who did manage to stay on it, their average starting weight, 220 pounds and they lost 10 to 12 pounds in the course of one year. So they went from, say, 220 to about 210 or 208. Now that is not a gigantic weight-loss, but, hey, any weight- loss is a good thing.
And as for which diet worked better, they all worked approximately about the same. Atkins did not work quite as well as the other three -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: So, then, are they considering that all of these diets, even though the weight-loss is relatively small, as you point out, they count as a success?
COHEN: This is a really mixed bag. And obesity experts have spent hours and hours and years and years arguing about this. When you have a dropout rate that is that big and a weight-loss that is that relatively small, some people say, Well, that still is a success. A ten-pound weight-loss for half of the people, that's not bad at all.
But other people will say, Geez, we've got to come up with something better than this.
O'BRIEN: Elizabeth Cohen, I think there a lot of people are saying that today, as well. Got to get something better than this. Thanks so much for that report. Certainly appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 10, 2003 - 09:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Four of the most popular diets all take different approaches to weight-loss. But, surprisingly, they all work.
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is at the CNN Center with much more on that. Elizabeth, good morning again.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
They all worked but only to a certain extent. Let's take a look at those four diets. The four diets in the study were Atkins, Dean Ornish, Weight Watchers and the Zone. A hundred and sixty patients were divided into four groups and put on the diet.
And here's the really bad news, unfortunately, is that many of them dropped out. The patients who were on Atkins and Ornish, 50 percent of them dropped out before the study was over in that one year. So that's half of the patients leaving before the study was over because they just couldn't stay on the diet.
On Weight Watchers and Zone, 35 percent of the patients dropped out. Those are huge dropout rates. They just couldn't stay on the diets.
Let's look at the results for the people who did manage to stay on the diets. For the ones who did manage to stay on it, their average starting weight, 220 pounds and they lost 10 to 12 pounds in the course of one year. So they went from, say, 220 to about 210 or 208. Now that is not a gigantic weight-loss, but, hey, any weight- loss is a good thing.
And as for which diet worked better, they all worked approximately about the same. Atkins did not work quite as well as the other three -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: So, then, are they considering that all of these diets, even though the weight-loss is relatively small, as you point out, they count as a success?
COHEN: This is a really mixed bag. And obesity experts have spent hours and hours and years and years arguing about this. When you have a dropout rate that is that big and a weight-loss that is that relatively small, some people say, Well, that still is a success. A ten-pound weight-loss for half of the people, that's not bad at all.
But other people will say, Geez, we've got to come up with something better than this.
O'BRIEN: Elizabeth Cohen, I think there a lot of people are saying that today, as well. Got to get something better than this. Thanks so much for that report. Certainly appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
