Conventional wisdom is that fad diets aren't worth anyone's while.

While low-calorie diets like SlimFast and the Lemon Detox Diet promise rapid weight loss, the case is often made that two weeks spent drinking meal replacement shakes will probably be followed by two more eating pizza and ice-cream.

But new research from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre and the University of Western Sydney suggests that this relationship between fasting and bingeing isn't so clear cut.

In fact, for some people, it could be the opposite.

In a report published in Obesity Reviews, researchers reviewed clinical trials that measured binge eating before and after semi-starvation diets in obese people who did and did not have problems with bingeing before the diet.