Background: The Mediterranean diet has been shown to be effective in improving health and weight loss with some studies suggesting females achieve better outcomes with this intervention. This study explored gender differences in recruitment, adherence and retention for Mediterranean diet interventions and whether these were associated with differences in weight loss outcomes.
Methods: A systematic search was completed in Embase, Medline, Cochrane and clinicaltrials.gov to identify of studies using a Mediterranean diet intervention with at least one weight loss outcome, and reported retention and/or adherence outcomes stratified by gender. Newcastle Ottawa score was used to assess risk of bias and a meta-analysis of each outcome undertaken separately.
Results: A total of 70 articles were included in the systematic review with 6 articles included in the adherence meta-analysis and 9 in the drop out meta-analysis. No statistically significant difference was shown for adherence or retention by gender, although the results tended to favour females. Weight loss outcomes were inconsistent and study quality poor.
Conclusions: The results of the study suggest a higher adherence and lower drop out for women although these results were not statistically significant. Only a small proportion of studies presented results stratified by gender.