Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Dietary therapy (DT), programmed physical activity (PPA) and cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) are basic measures in the treatment of obesity. CBT applies methods which change eating habits of obese persons, aiming to remove barriers relating DT and PPA. The goal of this study is to try efficiency of applying CBT in the programme for the reduction of body mass of obese persons, vs the application of DT and PPA alone.

Design: The study included 60 obese persons, who were divided into two groups (1 and 2), with 30 patients in each group, 20–58 years of age, with the BMI ≥30 kg/m² and hyperlipidaemia (LDL-cholesterol ≥4.2 mmol/l serum). Patients have not been previously treated for obesity and were unhappy with their weight. Patients from both groups were on hypocaloric diet, individually designed and had programmed physical activity every day. Patient in group 2 underwent group CBT, under the supervision of psychiatrist once a week with duration of 120 min, but in group 1 no. Both groups also went to see an endocrinologist six times, on which occasions their body weight, parameters of lipid status serum and level of glucose in serum were measured. Results showed that in group 2, the medium value of BM reduction after 12 weeks of treatment was 9.5 kg (8.9%), LDL-cholesterol decreased for 34.5%, HDL-cholesterol increased for 2.7%, triglycerides decreased for 15.3%, glycaemia decreased for 14.8%, which is the significantly better metabolic profile, then in group 1.

Conclusion: CBT affected the improvement of motivation and readiness of patients to stick to the dietary regimen and physical activity. In designing the program for the reduction of obesity it is necessary to include CBT, which brings significantly better therapy outcomes, then the application of DT and PPA alone.