Low-fat diets 'better than cutting carbs' for weight loss

[medis111]

Hi,

I thought this was interesting. From what I've read on these forums, most of the people say to reduce carbs and increase fat to reduce body fat %, but this study would suggest otherwise.

Discuss.

bbccouk/news/health-33905745

Cant post links, but Im sure you will find it.

[BrightonBomber]

Interesting results but with the study being on only 19 people you can't really say their results were conclusive based upon such a small sample group.

[Mrpb]

The diet periods only lasted 6 days. Adaptation to a higher fat diet takes longer. Makes the study pretty much useless.

[lee__d]

^Beat me to it. Interesting, but not really applicable to real life.

[Thanshin]

"19 obese people [...] over a period of two weeks"

Is this serious? Or some king of cross-link with theonion.

[Mrpb]

19 participants in a metabolic ward study like this is fine. It's the 6 days that's the problem for real life applicability.

[EjnarKolinkar]

The diet periods only lasted 6 days. Adaptation to a higher fat diet takes longer. Makes the study pretty much useless.

Actually adaptation to a very low carb diet takes longer. I don't think there is an adaptation to just eating more fat. And the study participants were not consuming a low carb diet. The low fat diet was really low fat though. Does not seem to compare to the zone diet, but might be similar to some paleo/primal intakes I suppose. Or the many half assed attempts at keto people attempt.


http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/...131(15)00350-2

Interesting results but with the study being on only 19 people you can't really say their results were conclusive based upon such a small sample group.

metabolic ward, controlled intake, bloodwork, dxa scans, oops there were not 100,000 participants we should not even read it. Gimme a break.

Randomized controlled trials often involve hundreds or thousands of subjects prescribed to follow different diet regiments, with investigators providing instructions and support to participants on how to eat the prescribed diets. However, there is little evidence that people actually adhere to the diet prescriptions.

Previous inpatient controlled-feeding studies have employed isocaloric reduced-energy diets with fixed protein and varying in carbohydrate and fat to investigate differences in weight loss (Anderson, 1944, Bell et al., 1969, Bogardus et al., 1981, Bortz et al., 1967, Bortz et al., 1968, Fletcher et al., 1961, Golay et al., 1996, Kekwick and Pawan, 1956, Kinsell et al., 1964, Lewis et al., 1977, Miya****a et al., 2004, Olesen and Quaade, 1960, Pilkington et al., 1960, Rabast et al., 1979, Rabast et al., 1981, Rumpler et al., 1991, Vazquez and Adibi, 1992, Vazquez et al., 1995, Werner, 1955, Yang and Van Itallie, 1976). Only two of these previous studies investigated more subjects per diet group than the present study (Golay et al., 1996, Rabast et al., 1979)

http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/...131(15)00350-2

[SuffolkPunch]

6 day period proves nothing. If it was run for longer, it MIGHT show up the slightly higher TEF of carb vs fat but that's it.

Doesn't address satiety or health in the long term.

[Mrpb]

Actually adaptation to a very low carb diet takes longer. I don't think there is an adaptation to just eating more fat. And the study participants were not consuming a low carb diet. The low fat diet was really low fat though. Does not seem to compare to the zone diet, but might be similar to some paleo/primal intakes I suppose. Or the many half assed attempts at keto people attempt.

Yeah i was aware of the study, read it yesterday. I still say to get efficient at the higher fat diet they need more than 6 days. I expect the benefit of the low fat diet is only short term. Afaik this has been shown in longer running metabolic ward studies.

[TonyNail]

Not a useless study.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.co...ndermines.html

[Mrpb]

If you're obese and only dieting for 6 days, going high carb/low fat may lead to slightly more fat loss than a higher fat/lower carb approach.

As far as I can tell that's the only valid implication of this study.

Or as Lyle McDonald on ******** said "6 days doesn't mean jack s**t".

[blue9steel]

If you're obese and only dieting for 6 days, going high carb/low fat may lead to slightly more fat loss than a higher fat/lower carb approach.

This is conjecture, but I'm wondering if perhaps the reason is that they hadn't depleted their glycogen reserves yet? They did do 1hr of treadmill work a day but it doesn't sound like it was particularly intense and there was no weight lifting. Additionally their carb intake on the "low carb" diet was 140g/day while the fat on the "low fat" diet was only 17g which is very low indeed.

The only conclusion I can draw is "For very short periods an extremely low fat intake is slightly superior to a moderate carb intake for sedentary populations", I'm not sure I'd call it groundbreaking though at least the study quality seems good. I was pretty disappointed with the protein intake though, it's well below what's recommended in the literature, for example a Phillips 2011 study recommended 1.8-2.0g/kg to prevent lbm loss in deficit. (That sort of range is typical)

For much longer periods I suspect the hormonal damage of that extremely low fat intake would be pretty substantial.

[Mrpb]

Examine.com analyses the actual study to see if the media headlines match the results

http://examine.com/blog/really-low-f...eid=368fcc0a19

Summary
As usual, don’t bother with media headlines -- this study is NOT a blow to low-carb dieting, which can be quite effective due to factors such as typically higher protein and more limited junk food options. Rather, this study shows that a low-carb diet isn’t necessary for fat loss and that lowering carbs and insulin doesn’t provide a magical metabolic advantage.
It bears repeating: if you even try to apply this study to the real world of dieting choices, you will be frowned upon strongly. Even the lead author writes:
"Translation of our results to real-world weight-loss diets for treatment of obesity is limited since the experimental design and model simulations relied on strict control of food intake, which is unrealistic in free-living individuals".

This study was strictly meant to fill in a gap in the knowledge base of diet physiology. Got it?

If you need a broad and simple takeaway from this study, here is one: weight loss does not rely on certain carb levels or manipulation of insulin, it relies on eating less. Don’t be scared that eating carbs will cause insulin to trap fat inside your fat cells.

[desslok]

If you're obese and only dieting for 6 days, going high carb/low fat may lead to slightly more fat loss than a higher fat/lower carb approach.

As far as I can tell that's the only valid implication of this study.

Or as Lyle McDonald on ******** said "6 days doesn't mean jack s**t".

So when the guys come on here with the "Help, going to beach on Saturday and need abs quick" threads, we know what to suggest.