Fruit and Vegetable Diet 'Not Enough' to Stave Off Weight Gain

Date:06 Jan 2012

Type:Nutrition & Health News

Source:Nutrition Horizon

Sector:Fruits & Vegetables

Summary:Researchers from Imperial College London discovered that those who ate the most fruit and veg were no less likely to gain weight- once factors like calorie intakes and exercise habits-were taken into account.

Jan 6 2012 --- A comprehensive new study has found that eating lots of fruits and vegetables may not be enough to stave off the weight gain that often comes with age.

Researchers from Imperial College London discovered that those who ate the most fruit and veg were no less likely to gain weight- once factors like calorie intakes and exercise habits-were taken into account.

Around 373,000 adults from 10 European countries contributed data to the study which was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, this group were surveyed for five years.

The researchers are quick to note that this is not an excuse to justify avoiding your 5-a-day.

‘Plant foods are full of nutrients that may help ward off chronic diseases like heart disease and some cancers’, note the researchers, led by Anne-Claire Vergnaud of Imperial College London.

For the study, Vergnaud's team looked at diet and weight information collected from adults between 25 and 70 years old.

Over five years, the study participants gained about one pound per year, on average.

Among men, weight gain generally dipped somewhat as their fruit and vegetable intake rose. But that link disappeared when the researchers accounted for other factors, like the men's daily calories, exercise habits and education levels.

Among overweight women, those who said they ate the most vegetables tended to gain more weight over the next five years.

That, the researchers speculate, could be because some of those women were on weight-loss diets that encourage eating a lot of vegetables. Many people who go on special diets notoriously see their weight yo-yo over time.

There was one group for whom higher fruit and vegetable intake was linked to less weight gain: people who quit smoking during the study period.

The reasons are not clear, Vergnaud's team says, but they speculate that healthy eating habits may help prevent the weight gain that many smokers experience when they try to kick the habit.

If that's true, they write, "this finding may have important public health implications because weight gain after smoking cessation is a frequent reason for relapse."

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