Relationship between Carotid-Femoral Pulse Wave Velocity and Diet-Induced Weight Loss

The global epidemic of obesity has increased over the past two decades, which has been attributed to a lack of physical activity and increased energy intake. Given the fact that obesity increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, nutritional approaches to prevent cardiovascular diseases often target weight loss. Although many strategies are used to induce weight loss, the most common ones involve either total energy restriction, carbohydrate restriction, or dietary fat restriction. This report addresses the impact of each diet on improving carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity, a technique that is used to measure arterial stiffness—a surrogate marker of cardiovascular disease risk. Fourteen studies were included in the analysis and revealed that diet-induced weight-loss plateaus with increasing duration of the intervention (p = 0.174, r = 0.455). Weight loss was significantly associated with a reduction in cf-PWV (p = 0.012, r = 0.591). Further, when macronutrient composition was considered, weight loss was achieved through a low-carbohydrate diet (p = 0.097, r = 0.626), not total energy restriction (p = 0.660, r = 0.204) or low-fat diet (p = 0.142, r = 0.975), tended to reduce cf-PWV. These data suggest that weight loss achieved through a low-carbohydrate diet may have a greater impact on PWV over total energy restriction. More studies are needed to test the effect of weight loss achieved through a low-fat diet on cf-PWV.