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The evidence is overwhelming that extra fat cheats you out of a healthy life now and can rob years from your life later. Just showing that excess weight is often unhealthy does not necessarily mean that losing weight can improve the situation. But in fact, losing weight usually does improve health. Indeed, many studies suggest that even modest weight loss can make you healthier.

For example, a 1994 study in the International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders looked at the effects of modest weight loss on heart disease risk factors in men and women. The subjects were 101 men and 101 women from Pittsburgh and Minneapolis - St. Paul. All were healthy nonsmokers between 25 and 45 years old. They had no risk factors for heart disease, but were 30 to 70 pounds overweight. Some were given a manual on weight loss. The others went through a weight-control program that include weekly meetings, weigh-ins, calorie cutting, and exercise.

After 18 months, the subjects who receive only a weight-loss manual had lost little weight. As you might expect, their cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, blood pressure, triglycerides, and other indicators or heart-disease risk stayed about the same.  In contrast, the subjects who went through the weight-loss program had kept off an average 13 pounds by the end of 18 months (after having lost 22 pounds after  6 months). Heart disease risk factors improved temporarily in people who lost weight but then regained. In "successful" weight losers - defined as people who lost more than 10 pounds in the first 6 months and then stayed within 5 pounds of their new weight - changes were more lasting. Both HDL cholesterol levels and waist-to-hip ratios continued to improve over the 18 month study. The pattern of changes over time differed between men and women, but both sexes got about equal benefit from weight loss.

The value of this study and others like it is that it shows small weight losses can have good effects. All these people were at least 30 pounds over weight, and some were as much as 70 pounds too heavy. They lost on average only 22 pounds after 6 months and had regained an average of 8 pounds by 18 months. Even so, that amount of weight loss had good effects after 6 months. Benefits continued throughout the study for both men and women who kept off at least 10 pounds.

Studies like this one are great news. They show that you don't have to get down to an ideal weight to benefit from efforts to loss weight. In fact, just cutting back on calories may be enough to improve your glucose control and cut your risks of other diseases as well.

Source: The Commonsense Guide to Weight Loss For People With Diabetes by Barbara Caleen Hansen, Ph.D., and Shauna S. Roberts, Ph.D. available from the American Diabetes Association.