[Measurement units used in treatments to reduce weight and obesity. Systematic review]

There are different parameters to express the loss of weight in the treatment of overweight and obesity: absolute loss, percentage of loss, decrease in BMI, etc.

To determine the magnitudes more used in the bibliography in order to establish criteria for uniformity in the expression of those results.

a systematic review of the last five years has made at Proquest, CINHAL, Scopus, with descriptors "body fat distribution" and "diet" and "diet, reducing" and "weight loss". Articles published in English, French and Spanish were selected. Inclusion criteria were used: articles only dietary treatment of overweight in humans, and exclusion criteria: not dietary treatments, metabolic diseases, less than 50 patients and less than 8 weeks of treatment. Title, summary, methodology, results and discussion have been analysed by two researchers independently.

854 items found, only 61 met the criteria. These were grouped into 5 subgroups, as they expressed the weight loss (weight or fat loss in kg; weight and fat loss in kg; weight or fat loss in %; weight loss in % and fat loss in kg or vice versa; weight and far loss in%). The results show a lack of homogeneity in the loss, being the percentage the most used expression.

There is great heterogeneity in the expression of results of the treatments for weight loss; the diet is one of the least used tools; the analysis of clinical trials of intervention reflects a high quality in subjects older than 18 years, highlighting the lack of this type of research lines in children under 18 years. Therefore, it should standardize the magnitudes of expression of the success of these treatments and increase the lines of research on this topic.