Drinking water prior to meals may help weight-loss
It has often been recommended in popular weight-loss programs that overweight and obese individuals hoping to shed unwanted pounds should drink more water. As is often the case, the evidence base behind this recommendation was rather scant. Fortunately, a study published in the journal Obesity suggests the recommendation may be quite sound. In the study, Dennis and colleagues randomized overweight/obese older men and women to either a hypocaloric diet alone or a hypocaloric diet plus increased water consumption for a duration of 12 weeks. The hypocaloric diet consisted of 1200 calories for the women and 1500 calories for the men. Those in the diet + increased water group were required to consume 500 ml of water (2 cups) 30 minutes prior to each of the 3 large daily meals (breakfast, lunch, …