Fad diets on metabolic syndrome among sedentary women— A systemic review

Introduction

Fad diets or crash diets are becoming popular day by day, expecting quick weight loss and subsequent health benefits from other lifestyle disorders. Obesity is one of the significant burning issues that has increased three times in the last three decades (1.9 billion reported in 2016 by WHO). Simultaneously more than 35 million children have been reported as obese as per the record available from WHO ^[1], ^[2] The extreme diets, also called fad diets, have been practiced by many populations, mainly in metro cities and urban areas. The quick loss of weight by the improper and unscientific ways without calculative diet plans are often a cause of serious health hazard in various countries including India. The fad diets may reduce weight within a short time, but it comes back its position if discontinued. The fad diets somehow minimize weight, but the respective person often faces some health complications. ^[3] Commonly, they are weakness, hypoglycemia, hypo tension, hypovitaminosis, and other nutrients deficiencies. Sometimes, a concerned obese person may face many troubles to get back the lost health in total. ^[4], ^[5] Young girls and middle-aged women are another population group highly affected by obesity and crash dieting. The polycystic ovarian syndrome is one of the pervasive endocrine disorders among obese women,mainly resing in cities. Many studies showed that dyslipidemia is significantly correlated with PCOS women who always showed higher triglycerides and lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. ^[6] So metabolic disorders happen due to their improper lifestyles that can be compensated with proper diet and daily exercise for some time. In western countries like America and Europe, almost 28% of obese women are positively correlated with PCODin addition to type II diabetes. India is another prominent example undoubtedly. ^[7], ^[8], ^[9], ^[10], ^[11], ^[12] In general, Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a group of metabolic disorders that include central obesity, hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, atherosclerotic or non-atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases. ^[9], ^[10], ^[11], ^[12], ^[13]

Material And Methods

The systemic review was conducted searching foropen-sourced and open access articles in Medline, EMBASE, Sciences Citation Index, Cochrane database. Free text search and controlled vocabulary terms relating to fad diets, crash dieting diet diets on metabolic syndrome, exercise using OR, AND, NOT Boolean operators were applied as search methods. ^[9], ^[10], ^[11], ^[12], ^[13], ^[14], ^[15], ^[16], ^[17], ^[18] The 'similar article title and the 'related articles' were used to search from Google Scholar to locate more important additional articles. The citations' trackingwas done from Web of Science and Scopus' reference lists as per open access possibilities.

Inclusion criteria: All peer-reviewed papers published since 2020 in English were qualitatively identified and assessed in the perspective of various fad diets application on metabolic syndrome, highlighting mainly obesity, PCOS, and Cardiovascular disorders (mixed methods studies). The trending crash diet or so-called fad diets considered only. ^[8], ^[9], ^[10], ^[11], ^[12], ^[13], ^[14], ^[15], ^[16], ^[17], ^[18]

Exclusion criteria: The articles were excluded based on keyword search and precisely researched obesity, PCOD, and cardiovascular diseases. Further, adult populations had been considered only but not children. The diet patterns which are scientifically proven already not included as these are not our discussion.

Results

The systemic review study sorted and finally selected 13 research articles that were 12 in 'internals' 1 in 'externals' under the part of 'sources.' In addition to that, memos were attached in the same position. Still, the memos were not included for analysis. Hence, the articles uploaded in Internal Sources have illustrated the total picture of the reference chart mentioning all authors' categories irrespective of the articles' publications details. In this review study, the final inclusions were the year of publication, name of titles of the individual articles, and their volume, issue, pages, section, and a secondary title, if any. (ref: table.1). The analysis has been done in three parts which concerned all types of fad diet and various diseases. Secondly, the importance of diet and exercises focusing on crash dieting effects. Lastly also the papers related to cardiovascular diseases and types of diet applied.

The study analyzed the primary 20 keywords that were used in the selected papers in the reference list. Out of which, weight as a word got maximum weight age that showed 0.55% with 716 counts followed by 0.41% with 620 counts in the word frequency list among all the 20 most used keywords in all the papers. Similarly, the word 'diet' was used in 561 counts with 0.43%. I have only demonstrated word frequency at 20 words search level and cluster analysis by word similarity in the paper. Hence, there was no need for other coding and meta-analysis (table.2. & fig.4).

1 showed the complete list of all articles finally selected. All the papers discussed the various trending fad diets or crash dieting often used worldwide based on their literature survey. From 2005 till 2020, as current years sorted and selected articles were considered for this systemic review. In case no data then noted as unassigned.

The above table demonstrated and reviewed all the related keywords frequently observed in the 13 studies. The words were focused as per study perspectives with the percentage, count, and length. Therefore, fad diets highly matter with weight, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and overall metabolic syndromes as per the author's work since 2005. At the same time, figure 2 and figure 3 demonstrated word cloud and word frequency flow consecutively, focusing on the most used keywords for current and future research

The above graph was prepared based on authors' perceptions and subsequently their year-wise work. Hence various research cum reviews were published in the perspective of fad diets' proper application.

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Discussion

As per analyzing 13 research articles, 20 keywords were mainly highlighted based on a maximum of 14 lengths and a minimum of 5 lengths. The 'weight' is visible as a mostly focussed word due to the full implementation of fad diet on weight management by the ordinary people considering an instant response. As per word frequency query results,weight was mainly visible, followed by health and diet. This denotes that studies in the subject of weight management and fad diet, the two keywords primarily used in search engines and other databases.

The word cloud also depicted that fad diets are often discussed for weight management among women worldwide. The point was further strengthened by the cluster analysis that authors are concerned with the work type by references irrespective of attribute values. ^[25], ^[26], ^[27] The review study was the done for the well-being of the society who are directly or indirectly not aware of the proper uses of diet plan. However, other important factors such as social awareness advise to practise yoga and other exercises to cope with syndromes such as hypothyroidism, poly cystic ovarian syndrome, diabetes, and different lifestyle diseases. ^[25], ^[26], ^[27], ^[28]

Conclusion

The systemic review study is essential for a severe issue like crash dieting practices through various unscientific fad diets for instant weight loss or metabolic syndrome. As scientists or medical professionals, authors are currently highly concerned about public health safety towards fad diets. The reason is they are not often customized or following respective published dietary or other medical guidelines. More research is required to understand the fad diets' safe and unsafe parts for metabolic syndrome.

Source of Funding

None.

Conflict of Interest

None .