Reducing weight increases postural stability in obese and morbid obese men

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the effect of weight loss on balance control in obese and morbid obese men. Methods: In a longitudinal and clinical intervention study, postural stability was measured with a force platform before and after weight loss in men. Weight loss was obtained in obese men (mean body mass index (BMI) ¼ 33.0 kg/m 2 ) by hypocaloric diet until resistance and in morbid obese men (mean BMI ¼ 50.5 kg/m 2 ) by bariatric surgery. Morbid obese men were tested before surgery, and 3 and 12 months after surgery when they had lost 20 and nearly 50% of initial body weight, respectively. Normal weight individuals (mean BMI ¼ 22.7 kg/m 2 ) were tested twice within a 6-to 12-month period to serve as control. Body fatness and fat distribution measures, and posturographic parameters of the center of foot pressure (CP) along the antero-posterior and medio-lateral axes for conditions with and without vision were performed in all subjects. Results: Weight loss averaged 12.3 kg after dieting and 71.3 kg after surgery. Body weight remained unchanged in the control group. After weight loss, nearly all measures of postural stability were improved with and without vision (i.e., CP speed and range in antero-posterior and medio-lateral axes). A strong linear relationship was observed between weight loss and improvement in balance control measured from CP speed (adjusted R 2 ¼ 0.65, Po0.001). Conclusion: Weight loss improves balance control in obese men and the extent of the improvement is directly related to the amount of weight loss. This should decrease the habitual greater risk of falling observed in obese individuals.

The impact of obesity on balance control in community-dwelling older women

“…In addition, it should be noted that the overweight group swayed more than the normal weight group; however, this difference was not significant (i.e., Table 2). However, we have previously demonstrated that postural stability is strongly related to the amount of body weight Teasdale et al 2007). Therefore, in this study, even if our overweight group is not significantly different from the other groups, as can be clearly seen in Fig.…”

“…There are other factors that might also increase a risk of falling, for example, sarcopenia (muscle wasting) and dynapenia (muscular strength loss), have been observed in these populations, and this contributes to the deterioration in physical capacity (Baumgartner et al 1998;Cruz-Jentof et al 2010;Clark and Manini 2010;Visser 2011). The effect of obesity on balance control has been previously observed and described elsewhere (McGraw et al 2000;Maffiuletti et al 2005;Greve et al 2007;Teasdale et al 2007;Menegoni et al 2009;Handrigan et al 2010), and the original contribution of this study is the demonstration of the added effect of obesity on balance control in older women aged 65-80 years old. Furthermore, despite the observed differences in balance control, it is important to note that these individuals were living independently.…”

“…Hue et al (2007) observed that young individuals who are obese and overweight swayed at a faster velocity than normal weight individuals. More tellingly, when obese and overweight individuals lost weight, their balance control improved, and a strong relationship (R 2 00.65) was noted between the amount of weight lost and the improvement in balance control (Teasdale et al 2007). There are two proposed hypotheses for explaining the detrimental effect of weight on balance control.…”

Body Mass Index and Functional Mobility Outcome Following Early Rehabilitation After a Total Knee Replacement: A Retrospective Study in Taiwan

“…These findings indicate that a high BMI is associated with reduced postural control and balance after a TKR. Because being overweight or obese is a risk factor for poor postural stability (56)(57)(58), and because changes in body weight influence balance control (59,60), it is reasonable to expect that overweight and obese patients perform more poorly in the FRT and SLS test compared with patients with a normal BMI, because such tasks are highly dependent on postural stability and balance control. Previous studies have shown that the performance of postural stabilitydependent mobility tasks improves after balance-based post-TKR rehabilitation (24,38), which is consistent with the significant improvements in the FRT and SLS test results for all of the BMI groups at the 2-month and 6-month post-TKR followup assessments in the current study.…”

Postural Stability Induced by Supervised Physical Training may improve also Oxygen Cost of Exercise and Walking Capacity in Post-Menopause, Obese Women

“…In post-menopausal women, Hita-Contreras et al [5] found that a body mass index higher than 25 kg m -2 can be already considered as a risk factor for falls. Tesdale et al [6], in obese people observed a strong linear relationship between the magnitude of the weight loss and the improvement in balance control, or a con irmation that body mass is a strong conditioning factor of the static and dynamic posture.…”