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Drinking water before meals may increase weight loss
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Drinking about 1 pt of water three times daily before meals may lead to moderate weight loss in adults, according to research in Obesity.
Researchers attempted to modify participants’ perception of fullness by “preloading” with water 30 minutes before meals and found that those randomly assigned to drink water before a meal lost more weight than those who were told to imagine they had a full stomach.
“We believe that drinking 500 mL of water before main meals is a simple message that could easily be given by health care professionals to patients with obesity when they are giving weight loss advice,” Helen M. Parretti, PhD, of Primary Care Clinical Sciences at the University of Birmingham, told Endocrine Today. “When combined with brief instructions on how to increase your amount of physical activity and on a healthy diet, it seems to help people to achieve some extra weight loss at a moderate and healthy rate.”
Parretti and colleagues analyzed data from 84 adults with a BMI of 30 kg/m² or greater between July 2013 and March 2014. Within the cohort, 41 participants were randomly assigned to drinking 500 mL of water 30 minutes before their main meals; 43 participants randomly assigned to a control group were instructed to imagine their stomach was full before meals. Researchers conducted an in-person weight management consultation with all participants at baseline and a follow-up telephone call 2 weeks later. Participants were asked to drink tap or still bottled water; they were discouraged from drinking carbonated water. Researchers collected urine samples from all participants at baseline, 6 weeks and 12 weeks to measure osmolality.
At 12-week follow-up, participants assigned to drink water lost an average of 1.3 kg more than those assigned to the control group (95% CI, –2.4 to –0.1). Those in the water-drinking group lost an average of 1.2 kg (95% CI, –2.4 to 0.07) after adjusting for ethnicity, age and sex. In addition, 27% of adults in the water group lost at least 5% of body weight vs. 5% of adults in the control group.
Adults who reported consuming water three times per day before meals lost an average of 4.3 kg during 12 weeks, according to researchers.
“We would like to carry out a larger trial with a 12-month follow-up to allow us to gain more definitive evidence that water preloading is effective in helping lose weight over the long term, and also to investigate the potential mechanisms of why and how water helps people to lose weight,” Parretti said. – by Regina Schaffer
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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