Low carb or low fat diet
This finding should be interpreted with caution, given the small magnitude of overall and between-group differences in weight loss in these markedly obese subjects and the short duration of the study. It included a racially diverse group of 150 men and women — a rarity in clinical nutrition studies — who were assigned to follow diets for one year that limited either the amount of carbs or fat that they could eat, but not overall calories. Future studies evaluating long-term cardiovascular outcomes are needed before a carbohydrate-restricted diet can be endorsed. The findings are unlikely to be the final salvo in what has been a long and often contentious debate about what foods are best to eat for weight loss and overall health. Conclusions Severely obese subjects with a high prevalence of diabetes or the metabolic syndrome lost more weight during six months on a carbohydrate-restricted diet than on a calorie- and fat-restricted diet, with a relative improvement in insulin sensitivity and triglyceride levels, even after adjustment for the amount of weight lost. NYTimes. But more recent clinical studies in which individuals and their diets were assessed over time have produced a more complex picture. Methods Subjects The study was approved by the institutional review board at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and an approved consent form was signed by each subject. Some have provided strong evidence that people can sharply reduce their heart disease risk by eating fewer carbohydrates and more dietary fat, with the exception of trans fats. During an enrollment period that lasted from May to November 2001, 132 subjects from the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center were randomly assigned to either the low-carbohydrate diet or the low-fat diet, with use of a preestablished algorithm generated from a random set of numbers. The new study was financed by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The new study showed that was not the case.
People who avoid carbohydrates and eat more fat, even saturated fat, lose more body fat and have fewer cardiovascular risks than people who follow the low-fat diet that health authorities have favored for decades, a major new study shows. The notion that dietary fat is harmful, particularly saturated fat, arose decades ago from comparisons of disease rates among large national populations. Among the longstanding criticisms is that these diets cause people to lose weight in the form of water instead of body fat, and that cholesterol and other heart disease risk factors climb because dieters invariably raise their intake of saturated fat by eating more meat and dairy. The new findings suggest that this strategy more effectively reduces body fat and also lowers overall weight. Inclusion criteria were an age of at least 18 years and a body-mass index (the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) of at least 35. com no longer supports Internet Explorer 9 or earlier. A Call for a Low-Carb Diet That Embraces Fat. Diets low in carbohydrates and higher in fat and protein have been commonly used for weight loss since Dr. Abstract Background The effects of a carbohydrate-restricted diet on weight loss and risk factors for atherosclerosis have been incompletely assessed. Article Activity 517 articles have cited this article Article The differences in health benefits between a carbohydrate-restricted diet and a calorie- and fat-restricted diet are of considerable public interest. Methods We randomly assigned 132 severely obese subjects (including 77 blacks and 23 women) with a mean body-mass index of 43 and a high prevalence of diabetes (39 percent) or the metabolic syndrome (43 percent) to a carbohydrate-restricted (low-carbohydrate) diet or a calorie- and fat-restricted (low-fat) diet. Robert Atkins popularized the approach in the 1970s.
