[Review of controled clinical trials of behavioral treatment for obesity].

The increased prevalence of obesity has been associated to an increment in chronic-degenerative diseases. The behavioral conduct therapies (BCT) have been used to help subjects develop a series of skills to reach a healthy weight. We conducted a review of the literature of BCT from controlled clinical trials registered at PubMed from January 2000 to november 2006. We found five long-term (> or = 12 months) studies and analyzed each study. The percent of weight loss at the end of follow up ranged from 3% to 9% of the initial weight; the percent of retention fluctuated from 92% at three months to 55% at 24 months. There were no similar reported studies conducted in Latino or Hispanic population. These results suggest that the change in loss of weight with BCT are modest at the end of the follow up period and that most of the studies report low adherence to treatment. It is recommended that public and private funds are needed to implement effective and safe multicentric long term randomized studies on different cultural populations, including most Latin-American countries.