WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Low-carbohydrate diets help people lose weight in the short term but work no better than other diets after a year, researchers reported on Monday.

Two studies of the popular diets that limit sugar and processed starches show they can work faster than some low-fat diets.

Both studies published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that after six months, the low-carb dieters lost more weight than the low-fat group.

But one of the studies showed that after 12 months, both groups had lost about the same amount of weight.

In one study, a team at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia followed 132 obese adults who were assigned randomly either to a low-carbohydrate diet with intake of less than 30 grams of carbs a day, or a low-calorie diet that kept fat intake at a moderate 30 percent of calories from fat.

Volunteers with diabetes had better control of blood sugar on the low-carb diet, the researchers reported.

The low-carb group lost weight faster, but the low-fat dieters caught up.

A year later, both groups had lost about the same amount of weight -- 11 to 19 pounds (5 to 9 kg) for the low-carb group and 7 to 19 pounds (3 to 9 kg) for the low-fat group.

Dr. Linda Stern, who led the study, said it confirmed that any diet that cuts calories will work.

"Americans are overweight because we're eating too much food and ingesting too many calories," she said in a statement.

But most people tend to overindulge in high-carbohydrate foods. "I think a low-carbohydrate diet is a good choice because much of our overeating has to do with consumption of too many carbohydrates," she added.

In the second study, a team from Duke University followed 120 overweight people and found those on the low-carb diet who also took a variety of vitamins and supplements lost an average of 26 pounds (12 kg), compared to an average of 14 pounds (6 kg) on a low-fat diet after six months.

However, the low-fat dieters lowered their cholesterol levels more, reducing their risk of heart disease.

"We can no longer dismiss very-low-carbohydrate diets," Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health wrote in a commentary. But researchers said more study was needed to show whether low-carb diets are safe in the long term.

"Patients should focus on finding ways to eat that they can maintain indefinitely rather than seeking diets that promote rapid weight loss," Willet added.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/diet...reut/index.html

Hmm... in every other article I read on these studies, they always mentioned that the low carb dieters had better lipid profiles.

Is this a typo?

My thoughts exactly, MyJourney.

You bring up an interesting point Journey... I copied the article exactly as it was written and pasted it here. I'd always heard the opposite too.

"Both studies published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that after six months, the low-carb dieters lost more weight than the low-fat group.

But one of the studies showed that after 12 months, both groups had lost about the same amount of weight."


Ok, I lost 40 pounds doing Atkins in about 5 months. This got me to where I wanted to be. If another person, who needed to lose say, 50 pounds, lost those 50 pounds in one year following a low fat diet. Does this mean the low fat diet worked better than my low carb diet? After one year, the low fat dieter lost more weight, right? This is just one way people can be misled. Another thing that NEVER gets mentioned is that Dr. Atkins purposely tries to slow down your weight loss as you progress through OWL into pre-maintenance.

That's interesting how people tend to really stall out after 6 months though. I wonder what is happening with that. That certainly was my problem too. So I started counting calories and the weightloss began again. Hmmm... Maybe the body just gets more efficient at turning fat to fuel after about 6 months.

JL, the graph I saw showed that the low carbers had a faster initial weight loss then they climbed up a little after 6 months, or stalled, while the low fat dieters had a continuous loss. I'd bet the low fat folks were counting calories and the low carb folks weren't. Maybe the ketosis induced anorexia wears off, I think it did on me and people are just eating more or perhaps there's something else happening.

What drives me nuts on some of these articles is they gloss over or leave out entirely the appetite suppressing aspect of the low carb diet. So even if it is all about calories and in the long run they do come out the same, if I'm miserable on the low fat diet because of hunger cravings but satisfied on the low carb which diet do you think I will fall off of sooner?

Something else that a lot of these articles leave out is that after a year, the low carbers had better cardiac profiles, specifically lower triglycerides and higher HDL, than the low fat dieters. Even if the weight loss is approximately equal, the health benefits (not to mention the lack of hunger) seem to be better with low carb making it a winner in my estimation.

and something else they leave out is the benefits the low-carb diet has on diabetic people. I have eliminated all medications, three to be exact, insulin, glucophage and actos and my blood sugars are normal. They don't want to emphasize this because then the drug companies will sue. I was never able to lose enough on low-fat because I was allways hungry, something that does not happens on low-carb. So far I have lost 70 lbs but I am stalling. Need to lose another 60.

I am wondering about drop out rates, did they mention it? The articles from last fall all showed huge drop out rates although on Atkins the drop out was non-significantly lower in some. Drop out rate is important if you propose for the population. Even if Atkins and low fat end up the same in weight loss after 12 month, these studies always have people drop out, and the researchers don't count them in the results, the ones who couldn't stick to the diet for the full 12 month. My impression is that it is easier for people to stick to low carb than to low fat, so that point is more important than how many pounds lost.

Interesting that the researchers point out the speed is less important than finding a diet you can stick to... duh.

re the lipid profile, that seems to be a YMMV thing. I have seen studies that show, as several here indicate, that the lipid profile is fine on average on Atkins, but several in this forum have joined South Beach after Atkins because of sky rocketing lipid values prohibited them from continuing. I think there is genes and diet somehow interacting in some but not all people.

The drop out rate was a little higher for the low-fat dieters.

Something else about the dropout rate; the dieters were randomly assigned to a diet and didn't get to choose which one they would prefer. This doesn't reflect real life where the dieter chooses which program they wish to use and would therefore have a higher liklihood of picking something that suits them and they can commit/stick to.
IIRC, there was also very little education or support offered to the test subjects as well which would also contribute to the contrition rate. They were handed a diet sheet told to read and follow it and sent on their way.

You really have a point. But the solution is very very hard to control - it is a matter of how to do design a study properly. When studies compared drugs to psychoanalysis, the same argument comes that if you hate talking to a shrink, it won't be as successful as drugs.

I believe that there are a number of honest researchers who really want to find this out. But to design studies properly isn't easy. For example, if at this moment you would tell people what the diets are, and let them choose, you would have a huge socio-economic and educational confound - people who are educated would be curious to try low carb, they would go online to inform themselves and thus would have more support etc. How would you take that into account? I think the US is doing a giant trial if really 10% or so of the population is trying low carb. We will know the long term consequences in 10 years.

Another thing to keep in mind on the drop-out rate is that they probably didn't give the dieters a choice as to which program they wanted to follow. So the drop-out rate in the study might be higher than normal for both plans because the people did not have the motivation they might have had if they had been able to choose their own plan.

edit: Sorry Lisa, I didn't read your comment before I posted this.

What you would get is a pretty good picture of how things work in the real world and not within the carefully controlled confines of a lab or clinical setting. Of course, it also depends on what you are trying to study. If the goal of the study was to see which diet was easier to stick to, they would have been better off allowing people to pick the plan that most appealed to them since sticking with something you find distasteful is not going to work very well. But...since (I believe), the goal of the study was to see which diet was more effective (and being able to stick with the plan is a big part of that), I can see where they might have felt it better to randomly assign dieters even if it doesn't match "real life" experience. I just happen to think it was flawed since being able to stick with your plan plays a big part in how effective it will be for you.
In the real world, people pick the diet that they want to try. In the real world, they get as much (or little) information as they are willing to look or ask for.
Since there is an addictive/emotional component to sweet/carby foods, giving someone a diet sheet and telling them to go forth and lose weight is about as effective as giving someone an instruction sheet on alcoholism and telling them to go get dry. As we see daily here on the forum, support and accurate information are vital to success. Quite honestly, I'm a bit surprised that the dropout rate wasn't higher in these studies on either side; on the low carb side due to lack of support and/or information and on the low fat side just due to sheer hunger or on either side from being matched with a plan that was unappealing to the dieter.