It's the perfect diet: enjoy your food, feel full and lose weight

SCOTTISH scientists are working on an "intelligent diet" which allows people to enjoy eating and feeling full, but still lose weight.

Researchers in Aberdeen are investigating how food interacts with the gut and brain to try to understand what makes people eat more and put on weight.

They want to help create foods that allow people to enjoy what they are eating, but that also mean they do not pile on excess pounds.

Professor Julian Mercer, the head of obesity research at the University of Aberdeen Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, said they already knew that food containing controlled amounts of protein helped people to feel full quicker, so that they ate less.

By finding the mechanisms which cause this feeling of fullness linked to eating protein, they hope to create products and recommend diets that allow people to lose weight and keep it off.

The work will be discussed at the Scottish Parliament's Festival of Politics in Edinburgh next week.

Prof Mercer said that, while a number of drugs had been available in the UK to tackle obesity, most had been withdrawn because of their side-effects. Accordingly, his team was hoping to find "food solutions" to the obesity problem.

"In many respects, we don't really want half the population taking drugs to control their weight either," he said.

"We know a bit about the sort of mechanisms by which body weight is controlled by the body, but we don't know a huge amount about how food interacts with those systems and whether we could manipulate the diet in such a way that we got those systems to help us in weight control."

Prof Mercer said his team was focusing on the "food-gut-brain axis" to come up with an "intelligent diet".

"We know there are certain diets that enable you to eat until you are full, but actually consume fewer calories than you might otherwise," he said.

"We have those observations and the sort of molecules or genes we are talking about could be just as interesting in the context of how they are involved in those sorts of processes as they are as drug targets.

"That is where we are coming from - to try to find a dietary strategy to help us tackle the obesogenic environment we are in."

The researchers have done work with Marks & Spencers, which is selling some products that help people to feel fuller.

Dr Alexandra Johnstone, a researcher in appetite control, said they now hoped to extend the range and types of foods that could be formulated with controlled amounts of protein to make people feel full without having to eat as much.

She said most products used dairy or meat protein.

"I have been working on vegetarian protein and I am interested in weight loss," she said."So one of the questions I wanted to answer was whether vegetarian diets or vegetable proteins were as effective as meat protein.

"The data shows that soya protein is as effective as meat protein in helping people control appetite and lose weight."

Dr Johnstone said she envisaged a growing number of products containing vegetable protein to help people feel fuller and stay a healthy weight coming on to the market. The team are working with food companies to come up with the best formulations of such products.

Prof Mercer said the key was finding foods people would enjoy, making them more likely to eat them and keep weight down.

Statin 'ketchup' idea for burger bars

FAST-FOOD outlets could hand out cholesterol-lowering drugs in the same way they supply ketchup as a way of combating the effects of fatty food, researchers said.

A statin pill could offset the increased risk to the heart caused by the fat in a 7oz hamburger with cheese and a small milkshake, they said.

The cost would be less than 5p per customer - the same as a sachet of ketchup.

People who smoke are encouraged to use filters, while those who drive are told to wear seat belts, said Imperial College London.

"Likewise, some individuals eat unhealthily," they argued. "Routine accessibility of statins in establishments providing unhealthy food might be a rational modern means to offset the cardiovascular risk.

"Fast-food outlets already offer free condiments to supplement meals.

"A free statin-containing accompaniment would offer cardiovascular benefits, opposite to the effects of equally available salt, sugar, and high-fat condiments."

The researchers said there could be no substitute for leading a healthy lifestyle, including a good diet, regular exercise, losing excess weight and stopping smoking.

But a complimentary statin would be at least one positive choice in a sea of negative ones.

Statins are taken by millions of Britons to reduce the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke, and work by lowering levels of bad cholesterol in the blood.

They are thought to be safe for the vast majority of people although some experts have raised concerns about side-effects, including problems with the liver and kidneys.

The research, published in the American Journal of Cardiology, was carried out by Dr Darrel Francis and colleagues from Imperial College.