Introduction
Currently, countless people across the world worry about their weight and, most often, how to lose it. Though many ultimately turn to solutions such as weight loss pills like Ozempic, the most direct solution is right in front of our eyes: diet and food consumption. One method that has been implemented is the meal-replacement solution: the replacement of meals with standardized prepackaged food products. In the study White Sweet Potato as Meal Replacement for Overweight White-Collar Workers: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Shih et al. wanted to establish if a meal-replacement formula based around white sweet potato could lead to long-lasting weight loss. White sweet potato has been used as a healthy source of carbohydrate and has been a part of traditional medicine in Brazil, Japan, Taiwan, and more; this begs the question: does it really help people lose weight?
Methodology
80 obese (MBI 24-30) white-collar workers from Chunghwa Picture Tubes, Ltd based in Taoyuan, Taiwan, were asked to participate, and 72 agreed. 12 more dropped out as a result of inclusion criteria and meal habit changes, leaving a grand total of 60 participants who would take part in the study. Basic anthropometric measurements such as body height, body weight, BMI, waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC), wrist circumference (WrC), waist-hip (W-H) ratio, thigh circumference (ThC), calf circumference (CaC), mid-arm circumference (MAC), mid-arm muscle circumference (MAMC), triceps skinfolds (TrS), blood pressure (BP), and pulse rate, along with blood tests measuring fasting blood glucose (FBG), aspartate transaminase (AST), and alanine transaminase (ALT) ,were taken from all of the participants. These established the baseline values.
Baseline measurement values can be found below. The data values are represented by the mean ± the standard deviation.
The 60 participants were divided into a non-WSP (non-white sweet potato) group and a WSP-MR (white sweet potato meal replacement) group. The WSP-MR group was advised to replace two daily meals, namely lunch and dinner, with two packs of shakes and one normal diet meal. The participants received a daily serving of two packets with 132 g of WSP-MR formula. In each packet, 400 mL of warm water was added to provide a heat density of 0.65 kcal/mL for each meal.
More information about the meal can be found below:
The entire intervention lasted for 8 weeks. During the 8 weeks, participants had four one-on-one in-person sessions about nutritional education and four group training sessions.
Following the 8-week intervention, the measurements taken at the start were carried out again.
Results
The changes in the biometrics can be seen in the following table:
Data values with a * indicate a significant within-group difference after intervention (according to a two-tailed t-test, p<0.05). Values with a # indicate a significant between-group difference after intervention (according to an independent t-test, p<0.05).
Essentially, both groups experienced decreases in several measurements after 8 weeks. However, the WSP-MR group showed statistically significant reductions in body weight, body fat, WC, and MAC, indicating more weight loss.
Conclusion
The researchers concluded that the white-sweet-potato meal replacement may facilitate weight loss in overweight adults. However, this study still has some limitations. Namely, both groups did lose weight,s o there are likely confounding factors that may have caused weight loss in both groups. Furthermore, the sample size and study duration were limited. Although the research shows promise, larger, more tightly controlled studies will ultimately be needed to prove that white sweet potatoes can lead to weight loss.
