A Randomized Trial of a Low-Carbohydrate Diet for Obesity

Abstract

The low-carbohydrate diet produced a greater weight loss (absolute difference, approximately 4 percent) than did the conventional diet for the first six months, but the differences were not significant at one year. The low-carbohydrate diet was associated with a greater improvement in some risk factors for coronary heart disease. Adherence was poor and attrition was high in both groups. Longer and larger studies are required to determine the long-term safety and efficacy of low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diets.

Carbohydrate restriction improves the features of Metabolic Syndrome. Metabolic Syndrome may be defined by the response to carbohydrate restriction

“…Figure 1 shows data from the study of Foster, et al [45] and, as noted above, despite the relative similarity in weight loss, the markers of MetS were more favorable in the low CHO arm than the LF arm.…”

“…It is of interest that in Foster's study [45] described above (Table 3; Figure 1), the average beginning values were 4.6 and 4.3 in the low CHO and low-fat arms, respectively, substantially above this cutoff value. After six months, the low CHO arm had reduced this marker to 3.7 while the LF group showed little change at 4.2.…”

“…In addition to studies in which weight maintenance was a feature of experimental design it is important to consider data reported by Foster [45] (Figure 1, (Table 4), who compared low CHO and LF diets. It is widely quoted that the low CHO diet is better at 6 months but that there is no difference in the diets at 12 months.…”

Should animal fats be back on the table? A critical review of the human health effects of animal fat

“…These diets have not only led to weight loss without direct calorie restriction they have resulted in improvement in the risk factors associated with CVD when animal and other fats are used (Foster et al 2003;Volek et al 2003;Herron et al 2004;Sharman and Volek 2004;Volek and Sharman 2004;Yancy et al 2004Yancy et al , 2010Brinkworth et al 2009;Sacks et al 2009). Moreover, trials of ketogenic diets in the treatment of final stage cancer patients and in experimental systems (Tisdale et al 1987;Breitkreutz et al 2005;Zuccoli et al 2010;Ho et al 2011;Klement and Kaemmerer 2011;Schmidt et al 2011;Chang et al 2013) have occurred, with some interesting results of reduction in tumour size, reduction of cachexia, or delay of initiation of cancer.…”

“…The diet wars of the 1960s and 1970s have reappeared (Yudkin 1964;Keys 1971), with a renewed focus on the effects of sucrose and fructose in obesity, CVD, cancer and type 2 diabetes as opposed to fat (Miller et al 2011;Hoenselaar 2012;Lustig et al 2012;Basu et al 2013). There is a renewed popularity of low carbohydrate high fat diets, as well as the scientific study of them (Foster et al 2003;Volek et al 2003;Yancy et al 2004). Indeed, it now appears that genes contribute to whether one will drop out of a low calorie diet depending on whether it is low fat or high fat (Grau et al 2009).…”