Diet Battle Ends in a Draw

– The quest for a knockout champ in the battle of the diets was dealt a blow at the American Heart Association annual meeting, where a head-to-head trial of the four most popular plans declared them all winners.


http://www.medicalpost.com/mpconten...211_143513_3808

An interesting article. In many ways this mirrors the 4 diets that were given a 6 month trial in the UK earlier this year. Whilst 2 of the 4 diets were different from the 4 in this article, the general conclusions were the same. I am looking forward to tonights programme on UK TV which gives an update of the 600 in the trial 6 months later.

This study was discussed in more detail here, about a month ago. I wonder why the Medical Post just picked up on it now.

Get this.

Of the participants who actually completed 12 months on the respective diets, those on the fat-free all-vegetarian Ornish plan had the LEAST improvement in their cardiac risk factors.

QUOTE:

"For 12 month completers percent reductions in weight and risk score were 3.9% and 12.3% for Atkins (n=21, 52% completion), 6.2% and 6.6% for Ornish (n=20, 50% completion), 4.5% and 14.7% for Weight Watchers (n=26, 65% completion), and 4.6% and 10.5% for Zone (n=26, 65% completion)"

It was based on the Framingham score -- which takes into account cholesterol, triglycerides and other factors -- to measure cardiac risk. (At least in the conventional view.)

Now that's BIZARRE. Ornish markets his fatless vegetarian diet as THE diet for preventing heart disease. And virtually every cardiac patient is put on some low-fat diet.

Yet Atkins, the Zone, and even the Weight Watchers diet improved cardiac risk profiles MORE than Ornish did.

But of course, no one will pay a lick of attention to that. Sheesh.

starting with this article: They say: shortly followed by

Now this makes little sense to me when Ornish clearly lowered risk the least! Why not just say they all help somewhat and leave it at that?