Maâthermes: Spa Treatment for Overweight and Obesity

Summary

Public health campaigns and industry-supported changes in our food supply have obviously failed to control the epidemic to date. However, customized life style modification programs (LSMP) comprising diet, physical activity and behavioral therapy (a set of principles designed to help patients achieve their goals) induce weight loss of 10% of baseline body weight after 16 to 26 weeks of intervention . Long-term weight control is then facilitated by an appropriate weight-loss maintenance strategy such as continued patient-therapist contact (whether provided in person or by telephone or e-mail). This strategy allows patients to stabilize at an average of 5% and 3% loss of baseline body weight after 1 and 2 years, respectively. Numerous reports have concluded that this modest weight loss contributes to important health benefits.

However, the high dropout rate during weight-management strategies presumably means that treatment is mainly effective in highly motivated patients, as the highest success rates are likely to be reported among study completers. Many individuals appear to conclude that the benefits of weight-management strategies are not worth the cost (i.e. time, money, and continued unrewarding efforts). This underlines the critical need to implement new, practical and affordable strategies to induce and maintain weight loss that can be achieved by most patients.

The main objective of this study is to test the hypothesis that a 3 week intensive course of spa therapy can reduce the weight (and/or BMI) of overweight or obese patient at 14 months (BMI from 27 to 35).

Conditions

• Overweight
• Obesity

Interventions

OTHER

SPA treatment (ST)

Drug: spa treatment soon after randomization : Spa treatment of 18 days. Spa treatment : the most adapted to the concerned pathology and common to all of spa resorts (mineral water drinking, bath with automatic air (bubble bathing), mud body wrapping, manual massages, water exercises ; * nutritional counseling (french nutritional recommendations booklet) ; * caloric restriction and physical training on demand (non mandatory).

OTHER

Non SPA treatment (NST)

Drug: General practitioner (GP) counselling After randomisation Verbal and/or written advice based on the "French national guidelines for a healthy life style" brochure (given to the patient by the GP at baseline)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Université Joseph Fourier

  collaborator OTHER

• Université Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2

  collaborator OTHER

• HAT Consultant

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• AXONAL S.A.

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Association Francaise pour la Recherche Thermale

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Patrick SEROG, MD · Hospital PARIS

• Thierry HANH, MD · PARIS HAT Consultant

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

20 Years

Max Age

70 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2007-03-31

Primary Completion

2010-06-30

Completion

2010-12-31

Countries

• France

Study Locations