Inpatient-outpatient randomized comparison of Cambridge diet versus milk diet in 17 obese women over 24 weeks.

Twenty-two obese women were recruited for a prospective cross-over trial of the effects of either the Cambridge Diet (CD) or 1200 ml milk with iron and vitamin supplements (milk) during a three-week inpatient study, then 20 weeks as outpatients, then a final week as inpatients. Five dropped out, leaving eight who took initially milk and then CD and nine who took CD and then milk. Within each diet group five women had their jaws wired together during the outpatient phase. The four groups (CD/milk, with/without jaw wiring) were initially well matched for age, height, weight and resting metabolic rate (RMR). There was no significant difference (by unpaired t test) between the groups during the initial inpatient phase in rate of weight loss, or N loss/kg weight loss, but patients on CD during days 13-22 had a greater daily N loss than those on milk (2.08 vs 0.28 g N/day, P = 0.02). When the change in weight loss, N loss and N/kg weight loss on changing diet within a patient group was compared by paired t test the patients changing from milk to CD showed no significant change, but patients changing from CD to milk showed a reduced rate of weight loss (0.36-0.23 kg/day; P = 0.012), a reduced N loss (2.02-0.28 g N/day; P = 0.0013) and reduced loss of N/kg (6.26 to 1.02 g N/kg; P = 0.025). During the outpatient phase weight loss was not significantly related to the diet, but patients with jaws wired lost more weight than those without jaw wiring (0.151 vs 0.077 kg/day; P = 0.04).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes