from cookingontheside.com

Let’s see – there are:

• low-fat/high carb diets
• low carb/high protein diets
• moderate fat Mediterranean diets
• low fat diets
• low carb diets and
• calorie restricted diets (any combination of fat/protein/carbs)

And there are variations of each (Pritikin, Atkins, Zone etc) but which studies can you trust?

Well researchers from the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health teamed up with researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Pennington Biomedical Research Center of Louisiana State University to try answer this question. Their results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

811 overweight and obese adults were randomized into 4 different diets that restricted either protein, fats or carbohydrates. The subjects were followed for 2 years and all groups were offered group and individual instructional sessions for 2 years. The major differences between this study and preceding ones were the length of time that subjects were followed – 2 years vs 1, larger sample sizes (the number of people in the study -  not the food portions), the inclusion of more men and the ability to keep researchers and  study subjects unaware of the type of diet they were on. This was done by having similar foods chosen and ensuring that all of the diets met the guidelines for cardiovascular health.

The diets consisted of varying percentages of fat, protein and carbohydrates. The breakdown for each diet was:

• Diet 1:   20% fat, 15% protein, 65% carbs
• Diet 2: 20% fat, 25% protein, 55% carbs
• Diet 3: 40% fat, 15% protein, 45% carbs
• Diet 4: 40% fat, 25% protein, 35% carbs

Thus there were 2 low fat diets, 2 high fat diets, 2 moderate protein and 2 high protein. The one constant throughout was that each participant had their calories reduced by 750/day which was based on the individual’s resting metabolic rate.

All subjects participated in 90 minutes of moderate activity/wk and participated in various group and individual sessions.

So which diet was better? None of them – it didn’t matter which diet was followed – rather weight loss resulted from a reduction in caloric intake. So next time you read about the latest fad diet, don’t bother. If you reduce your intake by 514 calories a day (1 kid size chocolate chip cookie is 180 calories), you’ll lose a pound a wk or 52 pounds a year.

Think about that next time you want to reach for that bedtime snack…..

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