Investigation of a new diet for the treatment of obesity in the NHS
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigation of a new satiety inducing diet for the treatment of obesity in the NHS
IRAS ID
189449
Contact name
Tricia Tan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Britain is in the grip of an obesity epidemic. In 1980, 7% of adults were obese, a figure that has more than trebled to 25% of all adults today. Obese people are at high risk of developing type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mental health problems, at a cost to the NHS of £5.1 billion/year. The scale of the problem has led the Chief Medical Officer to call for obesity to be considered, “at the level of a national risk.”
The NHS advises a low calorie diet as the mainstay of obesity treatment. Most low calorie diets fail because when food intake falls, the body launches a powerful hormone counter-response that makes people hungry and reduces metabolic rate, making low calorie diets very difficult to sustain. This means that despite the NHS’s advocacy of ‘lifestyle’ (i.e. dietary) measures as the cornerstone of obesity treatment, the advice being given will only work long term for a small minority of patients.
Low calorie diets fail because patients feel hungry. People also find it hard to follow a low calorie diet as they feel tired and lacking in energy as a result of the reduction in metabolic rate. We have used the scientific evidence on how certain foods make people feel full while others stimulate hunger to develop a new fullness (satiety) inducing diet called Satiety Protocol (SatPro). The evidence predicts that SatPro will work with, rather than against the body’s hunger-fullness system. In addition, unlike a low calorie diet, SatPro does not advocate a sharp reduction in energy intake which we hypothesise should therefore not cause a reduction in metabolic rate.
SatPro consists of six pieces of eating advice that bring the science of hunger, fullness and metabolism into NHS clinical practice and which will be used to educate, empower and support obese patients with weight loss for long-term success.
The aim of the study is to investigate if obese patients being treated in our specialist weight management service can lose more weight on SatPro than on a standard low calorie diet.
REC name
London - Hampstead Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/1622
Date of REC Opinion
22 Sep 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion