Obese adults trying to lose weight might benefit just as much from advice received over the phone as they would from in-person counseling, a new study suggests.

The findings, reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggest that phone-based counseling could offer a convenient way to give people personalized weight-loss help.

The study included 376 obese adults who were randomly assigned to receive various methods of lifestyle counseling in addition to the weight-loss drug sibutramine, brand name Meridia.

Researchers at Pfizer, Inc. found that patients who had frequent phone calls with a dietitian - up to 18 over six months - fared as well as those who had frequent face-to-face meetings.

Furthermore, both groups generally lost more weight than their counterparts who had less-frequent, in-person contact with a dietitian.

On average, men and women in the “high-frequency” in-person counseling group lost 9 percent of their initial weight over six months. That figure was nearly 8 percent in the group that received frequent phone calls.

The weight loss was less significant - about 6 percent, on average - in the group that received fewer (up to seven) in-person sessions. A fourth study group, which received frequent emails, had a similar result.

Finally, the fifth study group - a “self-help” group where patients were given only lifestyle manuals and access to a weight-loss Web site - lost an average of 5 percent of their starting weight.

The fact that the phone-based and in-person counseling groups fared similarly well is “most novel and interesting finding,” write Dr. Andres G. Digenio and his colleagues.

“By reducing the number of in-person visits to a physician’s office,” the researchers write, “telephone contacts may lower costs for both patients and providers, and by reducing visit burden, it may even extend adherence to the weight-loss program.”

Further studies, they conclude, should now test whether this is the case.

SOURCE: Annals of Internal Medicine, February 17, 2009.