Sreemoyee Chatterjee
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Crash diet may add more belly fat © Shutterstock
In case you think crash dieting can help you lose more belly fat, you are widely mistaken. Before starting an extreme diet, make sure you know things right. A recent study has shown that crash diet could actually result in more belly fat and less muscle. The study conducted by a group of researchers from Georgetown University in the US has shown that women are more towards taking up a crash diet than men.
The team noticed that on reducing 60% calories from the diet of female rats which is approximately comparable to lessening a 2,000-calorie daily diet to 800-calorie diet in humans, within three days the body weight decreased and resulted in cycling (which was similar to menstrual cycle) to stop.
Not just that, extreme diet resulted in a drop in a wide number of metabolic activities and factors like body weight, blood volume, blood pressure, heart rate and kidney function, showed the study. However, these functions were restored on quickly returning to typical eating patterns. In addition to that, a higher accumulation of abdominal fat was observed in these animals.
Even more troubling was the finding that angiotensin II, a hormone in the body was more potent at increasing blood pressure in the rats that were on the reduced-calorie diet, reportedly said Aline de Souza, a post-doctoral student from the university who was a part of the research. According to researchers, such changes in body composition may cause other long-term health risks as well. These include cardiovascular, renal and metabolic complications.