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The High Altitude Diet
The High Altitude Diet
The Science Behind The Diet
Does it work?
Maintaining Weight Loss
This diet could work, but studies show that people's appetites bounce back after about six months and they begin putting on weight again. if you could alternate, spending a week up high, then six months on the ground etc. then you may be able to use this as a diet. However, scientists are not certain if this diet is safe, so ferrying obese people to high altitudes twice a year may just be damaging their health, increasing inflammation and putting them at risk of heart attacks.
This diet works because levels of leptin, the satiety hormone, but grehlin, the hunger hormone, stayed the same, so the men would feel less hungry. Their metabolism rates also spiked during the stay so that they were burning more calories than they usually did. However, scientists are not sure if the men lost weight by burning fat, muscle or water.
The Weight Loss
A month after the men had returned home, they were still burning more calories and their exercise capacity had really increased. This was proved by subjecting the men to a six minute walking activity.
The Experiment
The men lost an average of 3.5 lbs and a month after they returned, they still weighed 2 lbs less than at the start of the experiment. The men did eat less and take in 730 fewer calories, but this cannot be the only reason for weight loss, because they were no more active than they had been before.
20 men spent a week living at a research centre 1000 feet below the peak of Germany's highest mountain, Zugspitze. This meant an elevation of 8,700 feet. Scientists knew that animals lost more weight when they were at high altitudes and that mountaineers lost lots of weight when at 12,000 feet or more, although the climb would help with this as well. However, the obese are more likely to suffer from altitude sickness, where low oxygen levels cause nausea, dizziness and heart problems. Scientists wanted to see if weight loss would still occur at lower, safer altitudes. They were all obese and their average age was 56. They could eat and drink whatever they wanted, but were not allowed to do any exercise apart from a light stroll. What they weighed, their rate of metabolism, their hunger and satiety (being full) hormone levels were all closely monitored and tests were performed on them afterward.