A six-month programme designed to help participants change their eating and lifestyle habits led to significant weight loss in people living with multiple sclerosis (MS) and obesity, new research revealed.
In the study, published in the Multiple Sclerosis Journal , 65 per cent of the participants lost at least five percent of their body weight while taking part in the telehealth programme.
They also engaged in an average of 46.2 minutes more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week compared to the control group.
Many also reported significant quality of life benefits as well as increased mobility.
The researchers wrote: “The development of an effective intervention for obesity in MS may aid our understanding of how weight loss and accompanying lifestyle modifications influence disease severity, symptom burden, and functional decline.”
A total of 64 adults with MS completed the study, all with a BMI ranging from 29 to 50s – putting them in the category of overweight or obese, according to US guidelines.
Fewer than half (41 per cent) of the participants reported an MS-related disability and the majority were being treated for their condition (86 per cent).
The patients were randomly assigned into two groups.
The first was a six-month telehealth programme while participants in the second group followed their normal course of treatment.
At the end of the study, participants in the control group were invited to take part in the telehealth programme.
Obesity can make MS symptoms more severe and harder to deal with, trigger more frequent relapses and also accelerate the progression of MS towards increasing disability.
A 2020 study published in the US found that only 10 per cent of people with MS and adopted a specific diet to lose weight.
The researchers suggested the findings pointed to a need for more MS-focused education about nutrition and the negative impacts that obesity has on overall health and MS symptoms.
