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Caloric Restriction Without Exercise Might have Risk for the Bone-Thinning Disease Osteoporosis and Fractures

Obesity is the second leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States (tobacco is the first). People who are obese have much higher risks of many serious health problems than no obese people. The most devastating of these health problems include the following:

Heart disease
Diabetes
High blood pressure
Stroke
Osteoarthritis
Gallstones
Lung disease and sleep apnea
Cancer

The good news is that you don’t have to reach your ideal weight to lower your risk of developing obesity-related medical problems.

Losing even 10% of your total body weight can significantly lower your risk.
If you weigh 250 pounds and lose 10% of your total body weight, losing those 25 pounds can have a meaningful positive effect on your health.
Losing 10% of your total body weight is a good goal to start with. You can always continue and lose more weight once you have reached your initial goal.

The safest and most effective way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. If you eat less and exercise more, you will lose weight. Simple as that. There are no magic pills. Diets that sound too good to be true are just that.

But it is not surprising that people may confuse their diet plan and exercise to burn fat. You may think that which one will be beneficial for you? Dietary restriction? Exercise? Or both are needed to achieve your goal?Two comparative studies suggested that to optimize weight loss, a combination of diet and exercise is best, and that exercise alone will not suffice.

Weight loss through diet only is not equated to energy expenditure through exercise only. Therefore, equal amounts of weight loss should not be expected.The essential factors in losing weight and keeping it off are motivation, proper eating and exercise habits, and an appreciation of better health. Losing weight will help you feel better. It also will improve your health.

Recently, a study shows that men and women who lose weight through caloric restriction, without exercise, also lose bone at the hip and spine, increasing their risk for the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis and fractures. Adding regular exercise to a calorie-restricted diet helps shield the bones from the harmful effects of dieting.

"Exercise protects against bone loss during voluntary weight loss," Dr. Dennis T. Villareal, who led the study, told Reuters Health. "Therefore, it would be important to combine calorie restriction and exercise to derive the benefits of weight loss and preserve bone."

Villareal, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and colleagues studied the effects of weight loss on bone loss in 30 women and 18 men whose average age was 57 years. The study subjects were overweight but not obese.

For one year, 19 subjects stuck to a calorie-restricted diet; 19 ate their usual number of calories but engaged in regular exercise; and 10 in a comparison "control" group received healthy lifestyle tips only. All but two participants completed the yearlong study.

At the end of the 12 months, the dieters lost an average of 18.1 pounds, while the exercisers lost 14.8 pounds and those in the control group had no significant change in their weight.

As reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the dieters lost an average of 2.2 percent of bone density in the lower spine and at the hip. In contrast, there were no significant changes in bone mineral density in the exercise group or healthy lifestyle groups.

The action of muscles pulling on bones during exercise is thought to produce "healthy" strain on the skeleton that stimulates the production of new bone, the investigators note. The current study supports this line of thought.

"It's important that calorie restriction not be seen as a bad thing," Villareal said, "because it offers enormous benefits with respect to reducing disease risk and is effective for weight loss. Also, there is a real possibility that calorie restriction provides anti-aging benefits that cannot be achieved through exercise alone."

However, to maintain healthy bones, "exercise should be an important component of a weight loss program to offset adverse effects of calorie restriction on bone," the team concludes.