Slow-eating can lower your obesity risk

Fast food can lead to obesity

Researchers from Japan have found in a study with diabetics that the speed of food intake can affect body weight. Slow food can help you lose weight. However, those who quickly swallow their meals tend to be overweight.

Speed ​​of food intake

Scientific research has shown that eating fast makes you ill. Researchers have found that people who eat their food are not only more likely to become overweight, but also at greater risk of developing a metabolic syndrome. Good reasons to spend more time with meals. Especially people with diabetes should do this. Slower eating could help them lose weight, according to a new study.

The speed of food intake can affect body weight. Slow food reduces the risk of increase. (Image: pressmaster / fotolia.com)

Low calorie diet for diabetics

People with type 2 diabetes are initially recommended by doctors to a low-calorie diet. Because this is the so-called diabetes in many cases can heal in a natural way.

Researchers from Japan have now found that simply slower eating can be beneficial for diabetics.

Kyushu University's Graduate School of Medical Sciences has studied the effects of changes in eating speed on obesity in patients with diabetes.

To do so, the researchers evaluated data from around 60,000 men and women who had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes during the study period. The data was collected from 2008 to 2013.

Among other things, the subjects had to give information about their weight and their way of life.

According to the authors of the study, the main interest was the speed of eating ("fast", "normal" and "slow").

It was also asked for habits such as whether the dinner took place within two hours before bedtime, whether it was after dinner snacks or breakfast was omitted.

In addition, the researchers inquired about alcohol and tobacco consumption as well as sleeping time.

Slower food inhibited the development of obesity

As Yumi Hurst and Haruhisa Fukuda of the Kyushu University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Fukuoka, report in the journal British Medical Journal Open, they found in their study that "slower eating inhibited the development of obesity.".

It also showed that slow and normal eaters were less likely to be overweight than fast eaters. There were also positive effects on the body mass index (BMI) and the waist circumference.

"Interventions that aim to reduce the rate of eating may be effective in the prevention of obesity and the associated health risks," the authors conclude.

Strategies for a slower diet

The study of the Japanese researchers also earned international recognition. Susan Jebb, Professor of Nutrition and Population Health at Oxford University, said, according to the Science Media Center:

"Although this is just an observational study and the association can not be considered causal, there is a plausible mechanism."

Also, laboratory studies have shown that slower eating leads to a reduced energy intake during meals.

However, according to the expert, the challenge is to "find strategies that lead to a slower diet in everyday life".

Weight loss due to fluid loss

Also Dr. Simon Cork of Imperial College London finds the study interesting. She confirms that "slow eating is associated with less weight gain than fast food".

This presumably has to do with the fact that signals from the intestine, which indicate that one is full, do not have so much time with rapid eating, in order to get into the brain.

Dr. However, Katarina Kos, an obesity researcher and diabetes and weight management consultant at the University of Exeter University Medical School, has made light criticisms of scientific work from Japan:

"It's not clear why people changed the perceived eating speed over the six-year study, but that would be of interest. While diabetes medications have been taken into account, it would also have been important to consider physical activity. "

However, according to the expert, the most important thing would have been the blood sugar / diabetes control. Because: "Poor control of diabetes can, among other things, lead to weight loss due to fluid loss."

It would also be interesting if slower eating can help people without diabetes to lose weight. (Ad)