Research
Hormonal
VLCDs improve cardiovascular risk factors, including lowering blood pressure, serum cholesterol, and improving glucose control in type II diabetics, though HDL cholesterol may decrease in women.
VLCDs can rapidly improve blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar control in obese patients with these conditions. However, women should be aware that HDL ('good') cholesterol may drop, which is a known side effect of weight loss in women.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Significant decreases in serum total cholesterol of 20% to 25% have been reported... Several reports have shown the effectiveness of very low calorie diets in the short-term control of type II diabetes.
Why this rating
Based on multiple observational studies, but mixed results on HDL.
Source
Very Low Calorie Diets: Their Efficacy, Safety, and Future
Thomas A. Wadden et al. · Annals of Internal Medicine · 1983
DOI 10.7326/0003-4819-99-5-675
narrative_review · n=10000Cited 264×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Very low calorie diets (VLCDs) providing less than 800 kcal/day produce rapid, large weight losses (average 20 kg in 12 weeks) in moderately to severely obese adults, significantly outperforming conventional behavioral or pharmacological treatments.Moderate
- Maintaining weight loss after VLCD treatment is extremely difficult, with majority of patients regaining significant weight within 1-2 years, regardless of maintenance strategies.Moderate
Related findings · Hormonal
- Initial treatment for type 2 diabetes should be a combination of metformin and either an SGLT-2 inhibitor or a GLP-1 receptor agonist to achieve cardiorenal protection, rather than monotherapy or older agents like sulfonylureas.Strong
- For patients with specific monogenic obesity syndromes (leptin deficiency, POMC/PCSK1/LEPR mutations), targeted pharmacotherapy (recombinant leptin or setmelanotide) is highly effective and should be prioritized, unlike in polygenic obesity.Strong
- Continued weekly administration of 2.4 mg subcutaneous semaglutide prevents weight regain and promotes further weight loss in adults with overweight or obesity, whereas switching to placebo results in significant weight regain.Strong
This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →