Effects of a Calorie Restricted, Very Low Fat Plant-based Diet and Multi-component Exercise Program on Metabolic Health — PE  

Obesity Clinical Trial

Official title: The Effects of a Calorie Restricted, Very Low Fat Plant-based Diet and Multi-component Exercise Program on Metabolic Health in Metabolically Abnormal Obese Adults

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this study is to understand how weight loss by a very low fat plant-based diet with an exercise program affects metabolic and cardiovascular health in overweight adults at high risk for disease. Outcome measures will include assessment of insulin sensitivity, β-cell function, body fat distribution, skeletal muscle and adipose tissue biology, cardiovascular function, cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, immune function, and the gut microbiome.

Clinical Trial Description

Reduced energy intake and increased physical activity have profound effects on cardiometabolic health as assessed by insulin sensitivity, β-cell function, serum lipids, intra-abdominal fat mass, intrahepatic triglyceride content, and blood pressure, and is the cornerstone of treatment for people with obesity. However, the specific additional therapeutic effects of regular exercise in conjunction with diet-induced weight loss are not clear. In addition, the optimal dietary macronutrient composition needed to reduce cardiometabolic risk is not known. The use of a very low fat, plant-forward diet is becoming increasingly popular to treat people with obesity and is the only diet therapy that is reimbursed by Medicare in the treatment of people with coronary heart disease.

Participants will undergo nutritional counseling and have supervised exercise training 4 days per week plus unsupervised exercise sessions performed 2 days per week until 7-10% weight loss is achieved. Meals will be provided and food diaries will be kept during weight loss. Tests before and after the intervention will include muscular strength and aerobic fitness, cardiovascular assessments, glucose tolerance tests, hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp test for insulin sensitivity, muscle biopsies, body composition scans, blood tests, and urine and stool collections.

The overarching goal of this project is to conduct a comprehensive characterization of weight loss induced by using a PB diet with regular exercise in people with obesity, prediabetes and insulin resistance, followed by a comparison of the effects of this study with those from another study that is evaluating the effect of the same amount of weight loss induced by using a PB diet alone, without exercise. Specifically, we will evaluate changes in body composition, body fat distribution, cardiopulmonary function, muscle strength, the plasma proteome, insulin sensitivity, beta-cell function, systemic inflammation, muscle cellular metabolic pathways, and the gut microbiome to determine cellular, multiorgan, and whole-body effects of PB diet alone and PB diet plus exercise. Accordingly, this study will fill two important gaps in our knowledge that have considerable physiological and clinical significance; the data from this study will provide: 1) a better understanding of the effects of calorie restriction-induced weight loss plus exercise on a series of key outcome measures, and 2) the potential additional benefit of adding regular exercise to a plant-forward diet. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Insulin Resistance
• Obesity

• NCT number: NCT02706288
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: Washington University School of Medicine
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: March 2016
• Completion date: December 2022