This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Paul D. Thompson, MD
Brown University Providence, RI

JAMA. 1990;263(21):2885.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

In a recent JAMA commentary, Wadden et al¹ addressed the "responsible and irresponsible use of very-low-calorie diets in the treatment of obesity." In the section on long-term changes, we learn that patients 1 year after the diets have regained 33% or 67% of their lost weight, depending on whether they did or did not receive concomitant behavioral therapy. Is that it for long-term evaluation—1 year? Will all patients be just as fat 18 or 36 months later despite referral to responsible programs? These diet programs are expensive even when the costs of wardrobe adjustments are not considered. Perhaps the whole business is irresponsible until we know the long-term efficacy of these diets, their risks, and the metabolic effects of marked variations in body weight. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?