You Can Quit Smoking and Diet, Too
08/30/99
Believe it or not, if you're a woman smoker and want to quit, you may have a better chance if you diet at the same time.
The women in a recent study in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal described it as going through "two hells at the same time."
Sound crazy? There may be method to this apparent madness. The study, led by Swedish researcher Tobias Danielsson, compared 137 women who both used nicotine gum to quit smoking and ate a low calorie diet against a second group of 150 women used the gum, but ate normally. Compared to the second group, the women eating the low-cal diet had a higher success rate at quitting smoking, and they actually lost a couple of pounds. The others gained weight.
The women, who ranged in age from 30 to 60, had all tried to stop before but became discouraged and failed because of weight gain. "About [70 percent or 80 percent of people] gain weight after stopping smoking, and that's probably due to lowered metabolism or an increased food intake," says Danielsson.
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