HHS HealthBeat (March 04, 2009)

Success from losing weight

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

One problem that women can have as a result of being overweight or obese is urinary incontinence. But researchers say losing the weight can help women also reduce this.

At the University of California, San Francisco, Leslee Subak studied obese women with incontinence. Some use diet and exercise to lose weight, others did not.

[Leslee Subak speaks] "Women who lost an achievable weight loss – which was about 8 percent of their baseline body weight – had significantly greater improvement in their urinary incontinence than women in a control group who lost about 1 and ½ percent."

Subak says this indicates weight loss is a good option for these women. And she says it adds to the other benefits of weight control.

The study in the New England Journal of Medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: March, 04 2009