Impact of weight loss achieved through a very-low calorie diet on compensatory mechanisms activated during weight reduction in obese individuals

Abstract

Background: Diet-induced weight loss is accompanied by compensatory mechanisms, with increased drive to eat, and reduced energy expenditure, which try to restore energy balance. Ketosis has been shown to modulate some of these compensatory mechanisms, particularly at the level of appetite, but few studies have been done in this field. Purpose: Evaluate the impact of losing weight with a ketogenic very low calorie diet (VLCD) on subjective feelings of appetite, resting metabolic rate (RMR), fat oxidation and exercise efficiency in obese subjects. A secondary aim was to assess if age, baseline BMI, and magnitude of WL correlated with the strength of the compensatory mechanisms activated during WL. Methods: Fifty-one obese subjects (30