Study: Low-carb diet best for weight, cholesterol
Wed Jul 16, 5:00 PM EDT

The Atkins diet may have proved itself after all: A low-carb diet and a Mediterranean-style regimen helped people lose more weight than a traditional low-fat diet in one of the longest and largest studies to compare the dueling weight-loss techniques.

A bigger surprise: The low-carb diet improved cholesterol more than the other two. Some critics had predicted the opposite.

"It is a vindication," said Abby Bloch of the Dr. Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Foundation, a philanthropy group that honors the Atkins' diet's creator and was the study's main funder.

However, all three approaches — the low-carb diet, a low-fat diet and a so-called Mediterranean diet — achieved weight loss and improved cholesterol.

The study is remarkable not only because it lasted two years, much longer than most, but also because of the huge proportion of people who stuck with the diets — 85 percent.

Researchers approached the Atkins Foundation with the idea for the study. But the foundation played no role in the study's design or reporting of the results, said the lead author, Iris Shai of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Other experts said the study — being published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine — was highly credible.

"This is a very good group of researchers," said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

The research was done in a controlled environment — an isolated nuclear research facility in Israel. The 322 participants got their main meal of the day, lunch, at a central cafeteria.

"The workers can't easily just go out to lunch at a nearby Subway or McDonald's," said Dr. Meir Stampfer, the study's senior author and a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

In the cafeteria, the appropriate foods for each diet were identified with colored dots, using red for low-fat, green for Mediterranean and blue for low-carb.

As for breakfast and dinner, the dieters were counseled on how to stick to their eating plans and were asked to fill out questionnaires on what they ate, Stampfer said.

The low-fat diet — no more than 30 percent of calories from fat — restricted calories and cholesterol and focused on low-fat grains, vegetables and fruits as options. The Mediterranean diet had similar calorie, fat and cholesterol restrictions, emphasizing poultry, fish, olive oil and nuts.

The low-carb diet set limits for carbohydrates, but none for calories or fat. It urged dieters to choose vegetarian sources of fat and protein.

"So not a lot of butter and eggs and cream," said Madelyn Fernstrom, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center weight management expert who reviewed the study but was not involved in it.

Most of the participants were men; all men and women in the study got roughly equal amounts of exercise, the study's authors said.

Average weight loss for those in the low-carb group was 10.3 pounds after two years. Those in the Mediterranean diet lost 10 pounds, and those on the low-fat regimen dropped 6.5.

More surprising were the measures of cholesterol. Critics have long acknowledged that an Atkins-style diet could help people lose weight but feared that over the long term, it may drive up cholesterol because it allows more fat.

But the low-carb approach seemed to trigger the most improvement in several cholesterol measures, including the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL, the "good" cholesterol. For example, someone with total cholesterol of 200 and an HDL of 50 would have a ratio of 4 to 1. The optimum ratio is 3.5 to 1, according to the American Heart Association.

Doctors see that ratio as a sign of a patient's risk for hardening of the arteries. "You want that low," Stampfer said.

The ratio declined by 20 percent in people on the low-carb diet, compared to 16 percent in those on the Mediterranean and 12 percent in low-fat dieters.

The study is not the first to offer a favorable comparison of an Atkins-like diet. Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last year found overweight women on the Atkins plan had slightly better blood pressure and cholesterol readings than those on the low-carb Zone diet, the low-fat Ornish diet and a low-fat diet that followed U.S. government guidelines.

The heart association has long recommended low-fat diets to reduce heart risks, but some of its leaders have noted the Mediterranean diet has also proven safe and effective.

The heart association recommends a low-fat diet even more restrictive than the one in the study, said Dr. Robert Eckel, the association's past president who is a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado-Denver.

It does not recommend the Atkins diet. However, a low-carb approach is consistent with heart association guidelines so long as there are limitations on the kinds of saturated fats often consumed by people on the Atkins diet, Eckel said.

The new study's results favored the Atkins-like approach less when subgroups such as diabetics and women were examined.

Among the 36 diabetics, only those on the Mediterranean diet lowered blood sugar levels. Among the 45 women, those on the Mediterranean diet lost the most weight.

"I think these data suggest that men may be much more responsive to a diet in which there are clear limits on what foods can be consumed," such as an Atkins-like diet, said Dr. William Dietz, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It suggests that because women have had more experience dieting or losing weight, they're more capable of implementing a more complicated diet," said Dietz, who heads CDC's nutrition unit.

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On the Net:

New England Journal: http://nejm.org

...in a national weight reduction program I have to disagree.

1. Our body engines are not originally designed to digest MEAT, however;
2. It is designed to take all CARBOHYDRATES in and turn the same to sugar, seven or eight sugars to be exact. Certain sugars do certain things while other sugars do something else; and
3. The most important part of this diet is clean healthy water, that's right, simple H2O;
   
4. Which assists in the cell distribution of these MOST NEEDED sugars and for cell reproduction; plus
   
5. Body pH content, which must be kept in the slightly ALKALINE range of 7-8.

Have you ever asked your hematologist what the pH level of your blood is? According to medical science, which most hematologists are not trained in if your blood pH changes just one tenth of one percent you will die! In other words the body pH levels are very important for survival here on earth. Acidic levels of water, that's the range from 1 to neutral 7, one being the most acidic while 7 is neutral, is the number one cause of all diseases.

Simple facts, that people are to busy to take in for fear of being different, will cost them their lives and fortunes as planned by the elite. You heard me, this country has used starvation around the globe to subdue people. It is an age-old weapon of first choice. It was used in Viet Nam so why not expect it to be used again?

Researchers, have long know that proper amounts of clean sanitary water, the quickest way to kill any virus including the deadly HIV virus, is the answer to most of mankind's health problems.

Vegetables and fruits have tremendous cures stored up in them unless they have been genetically modified! A genetically modified plant may not provide the cell cures that every living cell needs. Man's body was not designed to die but to live forever. That's why when you open a grave you will find hair and nails still growing until all source nutrients is dissolved.

Diabetes is reversible with diet and exercise, but how many choose that plan of healthy living? Citrus fruits produce the greatest amounts of ASCORBIC ACID incorrectly called VITAMIN C and so ordained by our federal congress that has no business messing messing with our diets.

Brain Teasor: What Chinese discovered ADDITIVE is now added to almost all foods, and done so by an act of congress?

I'll tell you their reasoning: Their reasoning was that if this ingredient was added to all foods it would help the ELDERLY eat more! Yes, our congress has decided for you and me that we need that ADICTIVE ADDITIVE so we won't loose our apetites! Why?

Meat was not eaten until after the flood, if you believe in Judism or Chritanity. Hell, even the Muslims know that. Meat is not digested in the same manner as CARBOHYDRATES! It goes in and out with barely any benefit to the body except pleasure. In some countries COWS are only used for milk and work!

I've heard this diet fight going on for years and when the heavy fat diet mentor died of heart disease I wonder what he thought of as he lay there--it surely wasn't about you and I.

Take lemon or lime and cut a slice off. Pre-wipe a clean plate or saucer and lay the lemon or lime down on the plate softly. Do not cover it. Allow it to dry. Do not freeze it or stick it in a plastic bag. Wait two days before you move the test citrus piece. Tell me what happened?

Another good way to test if CARBOHYDRATES or good or bad is to use glass containers. Take grapes and put them in a clean glass container. Eat the grapes. When the last grape is gone do this simple test: Using only cold tap water, not hot soapy water; rub your finger tips across the inside of the glass container and tell me what happens.

Do the same with fresh beans.

Do the same with any vegetable or fruit, what happens?

Now do a startch or meat dish and try cleaning the inside of the glass with cold water only, what happens?

Seasoldier/Enough for right now--eat healthy.

The low-carb diet set limits for carbohydrates, but none for calories or fat. It urged dieters to choose vegetarian sources of fat and protein.

Typical Atkins diets contain a lot of meat and cheese, and don't go for the Tofu. All this study tells me is that predominantly vegetarian diets are better, which I already knew.

stealing from Dr. Sears. This group calls their diet "Aktins- like", when what it really is, is the Zone Diet. The Zone works. I lost a lot of weight a while back and kept most of it off. I go off and on it all the time. This week I started it again when my weight started going up. I have already lost 4lbs. My cholesterol is good, BP is that of a teenagers.