Can colorful foods help you lose weight?

by Stepy — April 22, 2016

Can colorful foods help you lose weight?

Can colorful foods help you lose weight? Colorful foods usually mean antioxidants. Of course, this doesn’t include foods with colorful dyes. This is about real, natural, and vibrant fruits and vegetables.

Flavonoids are types of antioxidants often found in colorful fruits and veggies. A team of Harvard scientists aimed to find out if these flavonoids can help with weight loss.

“Most weight loss studies to date have focused on the flavan-3-ol subclass [of flavonoids] found in green tea and are limited to small numbers of overweight and obese participants,” the researchers wrote.

The study was the first to look for an association between all three types of flavonoids (flavonols, anthocyanins, and flavones) and weight loss.

The researchers compared the reported weight of participants versus the types of flavonoids that they ate in different foods.

At the end of the study, the researchers found that the participants that consumed that most flavonoid-rich foods had the least weight gain. They found that colorful foods help you lose weight in deed.

As reported in the study abstract:

”Increased consumption of most flavonoid subclasses, including flavonols, flavan-3-ols, anthocyanins, and flavonoid polymers, was inversely associated with weight change over four year time intervals, after adjustment for simultaneous changes in other lifestyle factors including other aspects of diet, smoking status, and physical activity. In the pooled results, the greatest magnitude of association was observed for anthocyanins (−0.23 (95% confidence interval −0.30 to −0.15) lbs per additional standard deviation/day, 10 mg), flavonoid polymers (−0.18 (−0.28 to −0.08) lbs per additional SD/day, 138 mg), and flavonols (−0.16 (−0.26 to −0.06) lbs per additional SD/day, 7 mg). After additional adjustment for fiber intake, associations remained significant for anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, and total flavonoid polymers but were attenuated and no longer statistically significant for other subclasses.”

In other words, each extra serving of flavonoids measured up to 0.16 to 0.23 fewer pounds each year over the course of the study.

The researchers concluded: “Higher intake of foods rich in flavonols, flavan-3-ols, anthocyanins, and flavonoid polymers may contribute to weight maintenance in adulthood and may help to refine dietary recommendations for the prevention of obesity and its potential consequences.”

The research showing that colorful foods help you lose weight was published in BMJ.

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REFERENCES:
1. “‘Eat More Flavonoid-rich Fruits and Veg to Prevent Weight Gain’” Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
2. “Dietary Flavonoid Intake and Weight Maintenance: Three Prospective Cohorts of 124 086 US Men and Women Followed for up to 24 Years.” BMJ. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.