Dear Healthcare Professional,

Please find below the History, Effectiveness & Evidence for The 1:1 Diet…

The 1:1 Diet by Cambridge Weight Plan have been offering our weight loss and health solutions to clients for 40 years, via our network of thousands of independent, trained 1:1 Diet Consultants and distributors around the world.

Our nutritionally-complete, low-calorie diet products are used in the context of an evidence-based programme, which traces itself back to the world’s first obesity conference and the world’s first obesity journal in the 1960’s and our founder’s 50 years of research at the University of Cambridge¹.

Over the decades, our diet food products (made up of soups, shakes, bars and meal packs) and our programme have been extensively used in the real world, helping millions of people. We also have a large library of published research, demonstrating the impressive effectiveness and safety of our diet, some of which is summarised below.

We have numerous published studies showing an average of 10 to over 20 kg weight loss in eight to 12 weeks, with our longer-term studies showing good maintenance of weight loss for up to five years^{2,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,11}. Very few diet companies can legitimately claim this kind of short- or, particularly, long-term effectiveness.

We’ve also rigorously investigated the health effects of The 1:1 Diet and the benefits shown in diabetics have made international headlines. The most recent of four papers on the topic showed that our diet reverses diabetes in 61 percent of subjects². Prior to this, our landmark ‘DiRECT’ study showed such substantial benefits in diabetics that the UK National Health Service Diabetes Programme was inclined to initiate the Low-Calorie Diet (LCD) Pilot Programme involving thousands of patients and is ongoing^3,4. In these studies, diabetes remissions were achieved despite subjects discontinuing their diabetes and blood pressure medications at the outset of the study (although some medication was re-introduced in some subjects).

Moreover, this degree of weight loss has been shown to be accompanied by reduced blood pressure, cardiovascular disease risk, sleep apnoea, osteoarthritis pain, inflammation and other clinical improvements^{2,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14}. Additionally, research carried out by the University of Oxford has shown our diet to be clinically cost effective¹⁵.

Please find references and brief details of our published research below. If you require any more information or details, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

References:

1. The Howard Foundation, Biography of Dr Alan Howard, 2020. https://www.howard-foundation.com/biography-of-dr-alan-howard/
2. Taheri. S. et al. Effect of intensive lifestyle intervention on bodyweight and glycaemia in early type 2 diabetes (DIADEM-I): an open-label, parallel-group, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, 2020. 8(6), 477-89
3. Lean, M. E. et al. Primary Care-Led Weight Management for Remission of Type 2 Diabetes (DiRECT): An Open-Label, Cluster-Randomised Trial. Lancet. 2018 Feb 10;391(10120):541-551.
4. NHS UK. Diabetes Treatment, Low calorie diets to treat obesity and Type 2 diabetes, https://www.england.nhs.uk/diabetes/treatment-care/low-calorie-diets/
5. Christensen, P. et al. Men and women respond differently to rapid weight loss: Metabolic outcomes of a multi‐centre intervention study after a low‐energy diet in 2500 overweight, individuals with pre‐diabetes (PREVIEW). Diabetes Obes Metab. 2018 Dec; 20(12): 2840–2851.
6. Astbury, N.M. et al. Doctor Referral of Overweight People to Low Energy Total Diet Replacement Treatment (DROPLET): Pragmatic Randomised Controlled Trial. BMJ. 2018 Sep 26;362
7. Christensen, P. et al. Long-term Weight-Loss Maintenance in Obese Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis: A Randomized Trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2017 Sep;106(3):755-763
8. Nielsen, L.v. et al. Efficacy of a Liquid Low-Energy Formula Diet in Achieving Preoperative Target Weight Loss Before Bariatric Surgery. J Nutr Sci. 2016 May 30;5:e22.
9. Steven, S. and Taylor, R. Restoring Normoglycaemia by Use of a Very Low Calorie Diet in Long- And Short-Duration Type 2 Diabetes. Diabet Med. 2015 Sep;32(9):1149-55.
10. Olsen, R.H. et al. A Randomised Trial Comparing the Effect of Exercise Training and Weight Loss on Microvascular Function in Coronary Artery Disease. Int J Cardiol. 2015 Apr 15;185:229-35
11. Pedersen, L.R. et al. A Randomized Trial Comparing the Effect of Weight Loss and Exercise Training on Insulin Sensitivity and Glucose Metabolism in Coronary Artery Disease. Metabolism. 2015 Oct;64(10):1298-307
12. Pedersen, L.R. et al. Effects of 1 Year of Exercise Training Versus Combined Exercise Training and Weight Loss on Body Composition, Low-Grade Inflammation and Lipids in Overweight Patients With Coronary Artery Disease: A Randomized Trial. Cardiovasc Diabetol. 2019 Oct 1;18(1):127
13. Geyer, P.E. wt al. Proteomics Reveals the Effects of Sustained Weight Loss on the Human Plasma Proteome. Mol Syst Biol. 2016 Dec 22;12(12):901
14. Johansson K, Hemmingsson E, Harlid R, et al. Longer term effects of very low energy diet on obstructive sleep apnoea in cohort derived from randomised controlled trial: prospective observational follow-up study. BMJ. 2011 Jun 1;342:d3017
15. Kent, S. et al. Is Doctor Referral to a Low-Energy Total Diet Replacement Program Cost-Effective for the Routine Treatment of Obesity? Obesity (Silver Spring). 2019 Mar;27(3):391-398

Sincerely,

Mark Gilbert B.Sc., RNutr, CISSN

Nutritionist

The 1:1 Diet by Cambridge Weight Plan