Posted on 09/02/2014 4:58:30 AM PDT by Pharmboy
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 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. The notion that dietary fat is harmful, particularly saturated fat, arose decades ago from comparisons of disease rates among large national populations. But more recent clinical studies in which individuals and their diets were assessed over time have produced a more complex picture. 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. The new findings suggest that this strategy more effectively reduces body fat and also lowers overall weight.
The new study was financed by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. 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.
“To my knowledge, this is one of the first long-term trials that’s given these diets without calorie restrictions,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the new study. “It shows that in a free-living setting, cutting your carbs helps you lose weight without focusing on calories. And that’s really important because someone can change what they eat more easily...”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Original Research | 2 September 2014
Effects of Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets: A Randomized Trial
Lydia A. Bazzano, MD, PhD, MPH*; Tian Hu, MD, MS*; Kristi Reynolds, PhD; Lu Yao, MD, MS; Calynn Bunol, MS, RD, LDN; Yanxi Liu, MS; Chung-Shiuan Chen, MS; Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH; Paul K. Whelton, MD, MSc, MB; and Jiang He, MD, PhD
Ann Intern Med. 2014;161(5):309-318. doi:10.7326/M14-0180
Background: Low-carbohydrate diets are popular for weight loss, but their cardiovascular effects have not been well-studied, particularly in diverse populations. Objective: To examine the effects of a low-carbohydrate diet compared with a low-fat diet on body weight and cardiovascular risk factors.
Design: A randomized, parallel-group trial.
(ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00609271)
Setting: A large academic medical center.
Participants: 148 men and women without clinical cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Intervention: A low-carbohydrate (<40 g/d) or low-fat (<30% of daily energy intake from total fat [<7% saturated fat]) diet. Both groups received dietary counseling at regular intervals throughout the trial.
Measurements: Data on weight, cardiovascular risk factors, and dietary composition were collected at 0, 3, 6, and 12 months.
Results: Sixty participants (82%) in the low-fat group and 59 (79%) in the low-carbohydrate group completed the intervention. At 12 months, participants on the low-carbohydrate diet had greater decreases in weight (mean difference in change, −3.5 kg [95% CI, −5.6 to −1.4 kg]; P = 0.002), fat mass (mean difference in change, −1.5% [CI, −2.6% to −0.4%]; P = 0.011), ratio of total–high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (mean difference in change, −0.44 [CI, −0.71 to −0.16]; P = 0.002), and triglyceride level (mean difference in change, −0.16 mmol/L [−14.1 mg/dL] [CI, −0.31 to −0.01 mmol/L {−27.4 to −0.8 mg/dL}]; P = 0.038) and greater increases in HDL cholesterol level (mean difference in change, 0.18 mmol/L [7.0 mg/dL] [CI, 0.08 to 0.28 mmol/L {3.0 to 11.0 mg/dL}]; P < 0.001) than those on the low-fat diet.
Limitation: Lack of clinical cardiovascular disease end points.
Conclusion: The low-carbohydrate diet was more effective for weight loss and cardiovascular risk factor reduction than the low-fat diet. Restricting carbohydrate may be an option for persons seeking to lose weight and reduce cardiovascular risk factors.
Primary Funding Source: National Institutes of Health.
Ping...
Processed sugars are the enemy.
We were designed to eat stuff that walked on the ground, or came out of the ground/water.
Rendering, processing, concentrating were not on the original menu.
Another shining example how we should turn our lives over to the experts in academia...
Wait...
I would go beyond that: pasta and grapes are not processed any differently by your body than a glazed doughnut. It all winds up as glucose (except for the fructose which may even be worse). We didn’t eat wheat or oats or barley before 12,000 years ago.
Wait, the science is settled. How could this be?
It all depends on the quality of the evidence. This was ‘settled science’ for 50 years (the low fat stuff), but was agenda-driven and based on wishful thinking and no real data. Now we’re getting better data. And yes, always be wary of academics who ‘know’ what’s right.
I don’t understand. The government said that fat made us fat, they drew up that food pyramid thingy to solve everything, and it worked every bit as well as most of their solutions. We need to eat 875 servings of grains every day, and burn it off with 29 hours of daily cardio. Let’s Move!
It’s simple...science is settled when they give you the conclusion you want to hear.
Mmmmm....pasta....
Although I would much rather have my MIL’s red sauce (gravy) on pasta, with a nice wine and some fresh bread than a glazed donught.
And then sit back and let the high blood sugar just take me into a coma!
I used to think it was the wine that made my headache.
Those days are gone.
Don’t they already know this? It’s called “The Atkins Diet”.
That’s unsettling.
I was told yesterday that olive oil couldn’t possibly be healthy because it’s 100% fat.
Two groups of people have had a disproportionate impact on health policy for the last 50 years: Runners and vegetarians. Particularly vegetarians. The entire “fat makes you fat” lie was to stop you from eating meat. It’s that simple. Fat intake has gone down, obesity has gone up. When do we get to tar and feather them?
It was originally called the Atkins Diet, created by Heart Surgeon Robert Atkins who was belittled and derided by "experts" that claimed the Atkin's Diet increased cholesterol and body fat, and increased other health risks.
Atkins has been right for what, 40 years now? Too bad he's dead -- he'd finally see the medical and nutritional communities vindicating his claims.
Disclaimer: I used the Atkins diet 20 years ago and shed 60 pounds of body fat in just over 2 months. I combined the Atkins Diet with moderate exercise and kept that weight off until about 5 years ago when I started eating carb's again. Now at age 52 and needing to lose that same 60 pounds that I took off 20 years ago I embarked on the Atkins Diet again two months ago and have lost 25 pounds. (It takes longer to lose weight when we get older .. duh.)
Natural fats are healthy. The body knows how to process them and expel them. "Manufactured fats" such as hydrogenated fats the body doesn't really know how to process effectively, so some percentage of those hydrogenated fats are kept and stored.
Hydrogenated fats, along with processed sugars and processed starches have contributed much to this country's obesity problem.
Atkins diet removed those very things shifting to a protein based diet and natural/organic fruits and vegetables.
Think of it this way: if you're eating something that's NATURAL, your body knows how to use and process it. If you're eating something that's manufactured/processed not so much.
Bingo. I have cut most of that crap out and virtually eliminated bread/processed wheat and I’ve lost 20% of my body weight over the last few months and cut my body fat to just around 10% with little change in my exercise regime. The foods we eat today are just not good for you.
Another truth is that Americans have not needed as much food as our ancestors because few of us work as hard.
A quick word on the Atkins Diet. When our media idiots report on it, and when many of our friends and acquaintances comment on it, having been informed by the media idiots, all they consider is the first two weeks of the diet. I’d say a good 90% of the criticism is based on the notion that the first two weeks are how you are supposed to live the rest of your life.
Animals then didn't eat what farm fed animals eat today.
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