Study aims to help solve a dilemma facing older obese patients wanting to shed pounds but maintain bone health
The weighted-vest fad has entered the research arena, and not just with exercise scientists looking for proof of an athletic boost. A University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus researcher who focuses on exercise and bone health is hoping to help solve a troubling paradox that's been growing in importance with the nation's obesity rates for years.
"When you're losing weight, you're losing bone," said Sarah Wherry, PhD, an assistant professor of geriatrics at the CU School of Medicine. It creates a contentious issue for providers of older patients faced with the well-known fact that obesity can lead to cardiovascular disease, the country's No. 1 killer.
How do you pit cardiometabolic health against the increased risk for osteoporotic fracture when counseling older patients?
Early data from a Wake Forest University study found wearing weighted vests for a couple hours during subjects' regular daily routine appeared to slow bone loss during weight loss.
Now Wherry and her CU Anschutz colleagues have joined the Wake Forest team in conducting a new study that includes vest wearing during bone-strengthening exercise.
Collaborative study seeks new strategies
The $7 million National Institutes of Health-funded BEACON study will also compare the resistance exercise with and without an osteoporosis medication and will include nutrition counseling.
"Bone is a very mechanically sensitive tissue, so it's going to respond to the load that you place on it," Wherry said. "When you have someone who's losing weight, they're losing body mass, which is part of that load, so when you're losing weight, you're losing bone."
The researchers hope that they can prevent some of that unloading by replacing pounds while subjects lose weight using a weighted vest, potentially signaling the body in a way that would prevent as much bone loss.
Wherry said she also hopes the study can provide strategies for providers and patients as well as educate older adults who want to lose weight about the potential effects of weight loss.
"While the science part of this is great, and I'm really excited to get that data, I'm also really excited about giving people tools that they can take with them in the future to help them just make better choices about their health."
Recruitment for the BEACON study is still underway.
