People Eat Less on Low-Carb Diets

Researchers think they know why people lose weight on low-carbohydrate diets. It isn’t because they tire of bacon and eggs. Or because their bodies flush out excess water. They simply eat less.
Temple University researchers found that people on low-carb regimens such as the Atkins diet spontaneously reduced their calories by 30 percent, despite being offered unlimited helpings of protein-rich, high-fat foods, such as red meat.

On average, they cut out 1,000 calories a day when restricted to birdlike portions of carbs. They started eating calories appropriate for their height. "The carbohydrates were clearly stimulating their excessive appetites," said Dr. Guenther Boden, the study’s lead author and endocrinology chief at Temple’s School of Medicine.

The study, funded by the American Diabetes Association and the National Institutes of Health, is the only trial of the Atkins diet ever done in a hospital setting where every calorie could be measured, Temple researchers said.

The message, Boden said, "is not to cut (carbs) out but cut them down."

Appearing first in the 1860s, low-carb diets became hugely popular in recent years, spurring millions of people to try them. Studies have shown they can work, at least short term, but the reason has been hotly debated.

"This study is very useful because it tells us it is about calories at the end of the day," said Gary Foster, a University of Pennsylvania obesity expert. "It takes away some of the mystery."

Stuart Trager, medical director for Atkins Nutritionals, said the research confirmed that a low-carb diet fosters weight loss because it helps people consume fewer calories. But other studies have suggested that metabolism plays a role, Trager said.
By closely monitoring the patients, Temple researchers concluded the weight loss was from the reduction of caloric intake and not from water loss, boredom, metabolic changes or other factors previously suggested as reasons.
Annals of Internal Medicine, March 15, 2005

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