Research

Energy balance

A pragmatic 15-week intensive lifestyle modification program involving meal replacements and counseling produces clinically relevant weight loss (mean 6.7%) and significant improvements in exercise capacity and quality of life in patients with obesity and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).

If you have heart failure with preserved ejection fraction and obesity, a structured 15-week program using meal replacements for two meals a day, combined with weekly counseling, can help you lose about 7% of your body weight. This weight loss significantly improves your ability to walk and your overall quality of life, even without supervised exercise. The program is designed to be safe and scalable, using existing healthcare resources.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In a diverse population of patients with obesity and HFpEF, clinically relevant weight loss can be achieved with a pragmatic 15- week program. This is associated with significant improvements in quality of life and exercise capacity.
Elia C. El Hajj et al. · Journal of the American Heart Association · 2021

Why this rating

Prospective single-center trial with clear endpoints and statistical significance, though limited by sample size and lack of control group.

Source

Pragmatic Weight Management Program for Patients With Obesity and Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction

Elia C. El Hajj et al. · Journal of the American Heart Association · 2021

DOI 10.1161/jaha.121.022930

rct · n=41Cited 50×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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