Supervisors info:
Κόκκινος Αλέξανδρος, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Ιατρική, ΕΚΠΑ
Δαρβίρη Χριστίνα, Καθηγήτρια, Ιατρική, ΕΚΠΑ
Χρούσος Γεώργιος, Καθηγητής, Ιατρική, ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
Background: The prevalence of obesity has nearly doubled worldwide which poses a significant threat for public health. Amongst various risk factors, stress has been recognized as a substantial contributor to increased body weight. As such, stress management interventions, especially cognitive-behavioral, are becoming more and more popular. Notably, the role of stress management in stress- and obesity-related biomarkers have been scarcely studied.
Aim: To assess the efficacy of newly introduced cognitive-behavioral stress management technique, called “Pythagorean Self-Awareness Intervention” (PSAI), in overweight/obese patients.
Methods: This is a two-armed 1:1 randomized non-blind experimental study, using 49 overweight/obese patients. The control group received a personalized balanced Mediterranean low calories diet and the intervention group received the diet plus PSAI, for 8 weeks. Measurements included demographic, anthropometric, stress (perceived stress, saliva cortisol), dietary behavior, psychological disorders and metabolic biomarkers variables, such as fasting glucose, LD, Triglycerides, HbA1c etc. Outcome per-protocol analysis was performed using mixed linear models adjusted for age and gender.
Results: The total sample was comprised of 28 patients in the intervention group (mean age 54.7±11.9 years old, 82.1% women) and 21 patients in the control group (mean age 51.8±11.9 years old, 76.2% women). Participants in the intervention group showed statistical significant decrease of perceived stress, cortisol 30 minutes after awakening, cortisol's area under the curve, BMI, waist to hip ratio, restrained, emotional and external eating behavior, fasting glucose, LDL, triglycerides, HBA1c, body and trunk fat compared to the control group. PSAI compliance reached 100% and no adverse effects were noted.
Conclusions: PSAI had beneficial results in weight, stress, eating behaviors, metabolic biomarkers and body fat control. Future randomized-controlled studies should expand these results by using larger samples, longer follow-up, dietary intake assessments and active stress management control groups.
Keywords:
CortisoL, Eating behaviour, Fat, Intervention, Obesity, Stress, Weight
