One year follow-up of overweight and obese hypertensive adults following intensive lifestyle therapy

Objective: To examine the long-term effect on weight maintenance and dietary habits of participants in a clinical trial for weight loss. Setting: Community-based residents living in Maryland. Participants: Forty-four hypertensive, overweight adults who participated in a randomized clinical trial of weight loss. Participants were randomized to an intensive 'lifestyle' intervention or a 'monitoring' group. Main outcome measures: Weight, self-reported current intake of fat and fruit/fibre and self-reported barriers to maintain weight loss were assessed 1 year after the completion of the Diet, Exercise and Weight-loss Intervention Trial (DEW-IT) trial. Analysis: t-tests were used to compare groups for differences in continuous variables and chi-square tests were used to compare groups for categorical variables. Results: Fourty-two of the 44 DEW-IT subjects participated in the follow-up study. Overall, 55% (12/19) of the lifestyle intervention group remained at or below their baseline weight at 1 year, compared with 48% (11/23) of the monitoring group (P = 0.32). However, during that year, 95% (18/19) of the lifestyle intervention group and 52% (12/23) of the monitoring group gained weight from the end of the study. Both groups reported similar intake of fruits/vegetables (servings day^-1), dietary fibre (g day^-1) and fat (g day^-1). Conclusions and implications: The majority of participants who lost weight during the trial regained weight during the course of 1 year. A successful intensive 2-month programme of lifestyle modification (DEW-IT) was ineffective for long-term maintenance of weight loss.