Low-Carb Diets Best Than Low-Fat Diets For Weight Loss

Low-carbohydrate diets and Mediterranean-style diets are the best ways for shedding weight and cholesterol level than a traditional low-fat diet, suggests a new study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The two-year study, one of the longest and largest studies to compare the dueling weight-loss techniques, concludes that Mediterranean and low-carb diets are just as good and safe as the low-fat diet often prescribed by doctors.

To reach their conclusion, Iris Shai, the study’s lead author and a registered dietitian at the S. Daniel Abraham International Center for Health and Nutrition and colleagues followed 322 dieters, 277 men and 45 women, who all were "moderately obese".

All the study subjects were randomly assigned to adopt one of the three diets: low-fat, restricted calorie; Mediterranean, restricted calorie; or low-carb, non-restricted-calorie. All three regimens had similar amount of calories. Over the next two years, 272 or 84.6 percent of participants stayed on their diets.

After two-year follow-up, the researchers found that participants who stayed on low-fat regiment -a diet with about 30 percent fat, based on American Heart Association guidelines, lost an average of 3.3 kg (7.3 pounds) over the two-year period.

Likewise, those followed the Mediterranean-style diet- a diet loaded with fruits, vegetables and olive oil, shed 4.6 kg (10.1 pounds), while the weight loss for the low-carb dieters was 5.5 kg (12.1 pounds).

"The three diet strategies were beneficial for two years for all the biomarkers, but some of them were more specifically better than others," Shai said. "The good news is that you can consider and choose one strategy, but, once you choose one, you should stick with it."

In addition to the weight-loss, the low-carb diet excelled at improving the cholesterol level of the dieters. The low-carbohydrate diet based on the Atkins diet plan reduced the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL “good” cholesterol by 20 percent, compared to just 12 percent in the low-fat diet, and 16 percent in the Mediterranean.

"A low-carb diet, by giving up pasta, and bread, and potatoes, lowers insulin levels in the body," Dr. Eric Westfall of Duke University said. "And when there's less insulin, the body produces less harmful cholesterol."

The study, which was supposed to determine which of three types of diets works best, was conducted by BGU and the Nuclear Research Center in Dimona, Israel, in collaboration with Harvard University, The University of Leipzig, Germany and the University of Western Ontario, Canada. The study was partly financed by the Atkins Research Foundation.