Men lose an additional 5-10 pounds using olestra

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Tuesday, September 30, 2003 9:22 pm Email this article
Obese men lost lost an additional 5 to 10 pounds in nine months by using the fat substitute olestra (Olean) to replace one-third of their dietary fat according to a new study from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Obese men who ate a diet with one-third of the dietary fat replaced by olestra (Olean) lost 13.8 pounds compared to 3.9 pounds for those eating a fat-reduced diet with the same amount of digestable dietary fat versus 8.8 pounds for the control groupl.

There was a significant reduction of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides in the olestra group but not the other groups.

HDL cholesterol increased in all groups.

The improvement in cardiovascular risk factors was largely explained by weight loss rather than any effect due to the olestra.

The study was a double-blind, randomized trial which lasted 9 months.

The three diets that the men were randomly assigned to follow were:

1) A control group fed a diet containing 33 pecent fat,

2) A fat-reduced group fed a diet containing 25 percent fat,

3) A fat-substituted where olestra (Olean) replaced one-third of dietary fat with 25 percent digestible fat and 8 percent olestra (Olean).

Note: This is actually one-forth of dietary fat, not one-third as the study stated.

The study included 37 healthy, obese men with an average age of 37-years-old and a body mass index (BMI) of 31.

REFERENCE

Lovejoy J, Bray G, Lefevre M, Smith S, Most M, Denkins Y, Volaufova J, Rood J, Eldridge A, Peters J. Consumption of a controlled low-fat diet containing olestra for 9 months improves health risk factors in conjunction with weight loss in obese men: the ole’ study. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2003 Oct, 27(10):1242-49.

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