Score
One
For Low-Carb Diet
Atkins
diet trimmed significantly more pounds and body fat in obese but
otherwise healthy women than a traditional low-fat diet.
According
to a report released last week at the annual meeting of the American
Dietetics Association,
in a head-to-head comparison between two popular and distinctly
different eating plans, the Atkins diet trimmed significantly more
pounds and body fat in obese but otherwise healthy women than a
traditional low-fat diet.
The
study enrolled 53 women, aged 31 to 59, for six months. Half followed
a low-fat approach, eating 30 percent of calories from fat. The other
half ate according to the very-low-carbohydrate diet popularized by
physician Robert Atkins.
Those
in the Atkins group shed on average 18.5 pounds -- about 10 of it from
body fat. (The rest was due to loss of water and lean muscle.) By
comparison, the low-fat group lost about nine pounds, about five of
them from body fat.
Despite
the results, the study's lead author cautioned against drawing too
many conclusions or abandoning a low-fat approach to weight loss.
"I'm not sure that there is a take-home message from this study,
except that there is more research needed," said registered
dietitian Bonnie Brehm, assistant professor in the College of Nursing
at the University of Cincinnati.
This is one, relatively short-term study. Our conclusions are
that in the short term, a low-carbohydrate diet produces loss of
weight and body fat. We
by no means are recommending the Atkins diet from this one
study."
During
the two-week induction phase of the Atkins diet, carbohydrates are
limited to 20 grams a day -- about the amount found in one medium
apple and less than a sixth of the 130-gram daily minimum recently set
by the National Academy of Sciences. Prohibited are carbohydrates rich
in fiber, vitamins and minerals such as fruit, bread, grains, starchy
vegetables and any dairy products other than cheese, cream or butter.
Researchers
found that the women randomly assigned to follow the Atkins approach,
who had an average BMI of 34, did go into ketosis, as documented by
daily urine tests performed at home and by a blood test run by
researchers at the three-month point of the study. Daily food records
indicated that at three months, "women were taking about 41 grams
of carbohydrates a day, or about 15 percent of their total calories.
By
comparison, food records showed that the low-fat diet group, while
consuming about the same number of calories, took in about 169 grams a
day of carbohydrates. We were surprised that women could adhere to the
Atkins diet as well as they did.
For
the second three-month phase, both groups of women were told to adhere
to their diets, but were left on their own to do so. During the second
three-month phase, the low-fat group maintained their nutrient intake,
while the low-carb group began to add back carbohydrates, in other
words, the Atkins group found it more difficult to stay with their
low-carb regimen than the low-fat dieters did with theirs.
The
findings also showed that people in both groups ate the same amount of
calories daily -- about 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day. The groups
adhered to the calorie limits equally well, but the low-fat group lost
about half the weight as the those in the Atkins group.
Why
Atkins participants lost more weight and body fat than women on the
low-fat diet is a question that they hope to answer in a follow-up
study.
Nutrition
experts cautioned that these and other recent findings should not be
viewed as the answer to the obesity epidemic. Still unstudied is
whether long-term use of the Atkins diet may result in higher rates of
illness -- cardiovascular disease and kidney disease. Source:
American Diabetes Association
Publication date: 2002-10-29
================================
FACT
The
relative risk of developing type 2 diabetes in 1,058 cases ranged from
a relative risk of 1.00 to 2.87, depending on if one watched 1or 2
hours to over 40 hours of television per week.“Physical
Activity and Television Watching in Relation to Risk for Type 2
Diabetes Mellitus in Men
