Weight-Loss Study Seeks Participants

By Lori Bona Hunt

Worried about putting on weight over the winter holidays? You can start taking it off in January by participating in a nutritional weight-loss study being headed by two U of G graduate students.

Joy Renders and Rachel Sherfey, master's students in the Department of Human Biology and Nutritional Sciences, are looking for 80 people to take part in a study comparing the results of high- and low-protein diets in combination with or without exercise. Participants should be 20 to 40 pounds overweight and will be analysed for weight loss, fitness and body composition.

"There are a number of high-protein diets on the market that promote weight loss," says Renders, who is also a fitness consultant and personal trainer. "These diets usually suggest doubling the recommended nutrient intake of protein, and most studies have shown that people on these diets lose weight, but they have never looked at what role exercise plays and whether the participants are gaining in fitness."

Renders and Sherfey's study will follow up on earlier research by Prof. Kelly Meckling-Gill, who is also the faculty adviser on this project. Meckling-Gill's earlier study, which she also participated in, examined the effects of low-carbohydrate diets. Her research found that even people who didn't lose weight (she lost 30 pounds) showed overall health improvement, including lower serum cholesterol and blood pressure.

"Prof. Meckling-Gill's study didn't look at the role exercise might have played in that process, which is what we hope to determine," Sherfey says. Adds Meckling-Gill: "There aren't many studies out there that look at physical activity in combination with diet in controlled trials. This will give the students excellent research experience in the two most important lifestyle factors that relate to chronic disease elements: diet and physical activity. It's an ambitious project."

Study participants will be randomly assigned to one of four groups: a high-protein diet in combination with exercise, a high-protein diet without exercise, a low-protein diet with exercise and a low-protein diet without exercise. The program will run for 12 weeks and will include free weekly nutritional counselling and a free 12-week membership to the Athletics Centre. Participants will also receive food lists of favourable and unfavourable high-protein food choices and guidelines that outline how much protein and how many calories should be consumed each day. Participants will be monitored for body composition, weight loss, metabolic rates and blood pressure. At the end of the study, a summary of individual and pooled results of the trial will be made available.

"We look at this as helping people make lifestyle changes," says Renders. "The hope is that once people finish this study, they will have survived that hard first-three-months phase of an exercise and nutrition program and stick with it."

To participate in the study or to obtain more information, call Renders and Sherfey at 829-6847.