In 2020, researchers observed a difference in weight loss between the sexes, even when they maintained the same amount of calories.
Men have found it easier to lose weight than women, they revealed.
The findings came from The Direct Trial, a project led by the universities of Newcastle and Glasgow involving nearly 300 men and women with type 2 diabetes.
They were put on a low-calorie diet (850 calories a day) to see if it would help them lose 15 kg quickly (about 2 st 3 lb) – a weight loss that hoped to reverse diabetes.
“Both men and women consumed the same amount of calories, so there should be no confusion,” says Dr. George Thom, a research nutritionist at the University of Glasgow and co-author of the latest research.
Initial results, published in 2017 in The Lancet, found that half of the participants went into remission of type 2 diabetes.
But a new analysis (based on a study of participants for another three years, published in the journal Diabetic Medicine) found that, despite being asked to limit himself to virtually identical soups and shakes, there was a marked difference between the sexes.
After a year of dieting, men lost, on average, 11 percent of body weight. Women, by comparison, lost 8.4 percent.
And the gap continued. After two years, men lost 8.5% of body weight and women 6.9%. So, why can this be?
“We asked people to stop eating all their normal foods and replace them with four shakes or soups formulated a day, so it’s really quite strict and this ‘black and white’ approach to weight loss may be more suitable for men” said Dr. Thom.
In other words, they hold on.
“This is possibly because the diet culture is geared towards women from an early age, while men are more likely to feel the need to lose weight in midlife, so women are more tired of the diet,” he adds.
Men also carry more weight in visceral fat – the invisible fat around vital organs – while women typically have more subcutaneous fat (stored under the skin) around their thighs, buttocks and hips.
This pattern of fat distribution in women tends to be protective against a number of metabolic health problems – a combination of type 2 diabetes, hypertension and obesity, according to several studies that have shown that subcutaneous fat is associated with better health.
On the other hand, the visceral fat observed in men puts them at a higher risk, especially of cardiovascular diseases.
The result is that when men lose fat, it is visceral fat, which improves metabolic risk factors, leading to a reduction in the risk of type 2 diabetes, hypertension and obesity.
Dieting women successfully lose subcutaneous fat, but without the same impressive results in weight loss, the new study suggests, or in markedly improved health.