Oprah has invited plenty of bariatric surgery experts on her talk show over the years, but the media mogul with the yo-yo weight condition has never actually undergone the procedure. Turns out, there may be little need now that a new study finds that that people who make behavioral modifications through diet and exercise may be just as successful at keeping the pounds off as people who undergo the surgery which modifies the gastrointestinal tract. There is, however, one caveat: patients who relied on non-surgical methods had to work harder over a longer duration to maintain their weight losses, say the researchers from The Miriam Hospital’s Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine.

 

“Our findings suggest that its possible to maintain large weight losses through intensive behavioral efforts, such as changing your approach to eating and exercise, regardless of whether you lost weight with bariatric surgery or through non-surgical methods,” says the study’s lead author Dale Bond of The Miriam Hospital’s Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine. “Behavioral modifications and lifestyle changes are critical components to long-term weight loss maintenance.”

 

The study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, matched each surgical patient with two non-surgical patients through the National Weight Control Registry. All participants—315 total—lost an average of 124 pounds and had maintained their weight loss for an average of 5.5 years at the beginning of this two-year study. The study says there were no significant differences in the caloric intake or the amount of weight regain between the surgical and non-surgical groups. Both groups regained an average of about four pounds each year, the study says.

 

There were behavioral differences between the two groups, however. The bariatric patients reported greater fat and fast food consumption, less conscious control over their eating, higher incidences of depression, and more stress than non-surgical patients, the study says. As for physical activity, only one-third of the surgical group reported engaging in a level of physical activity consistent with recommendations for preventing weight regain, compared with 60 percent of the non-surgical group, the study says.

 

The only behavior associated with a greater risk of weight regain in both groups was susceptibility to cues that trigger impulsive overeating, the researchers say. “These findings underscore the need for eating and activity interventions focused on bariatric surgery patients," says Bond, who is also a research fellow in psychiatry at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. “Future research should focus on ways to increase and maintain physical activity and better monitor psychological parameters in bariatric surgery patients to facilitate optimal long-term weight control.”