Mega-study shows low-fat diets don’t work
12/04/2015 / By Vicki Batts
A meta-analysis of over 68,000 adults has revealed that low-fat diets are not any more effective for long-term weight loss efforts than higher fat or lower carb diets.
The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology published the review, which featured data pooled from a whopping 53 randomized trials that compared the effectiveness of low-fat diets to other types of diets.
Dr. Deidre Tobias, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, says, “Despite the pervasive dogma that one needs to cut fat from their diet in order to lose weight, the existing scientific evidence does not support low-fat diets over other dietary interventions for long-term weight loss.”
Many studies have been done over the years, often with mixed results. This new study conducted by Tobias and her team is by far one of the most elaborate and in-depth.
Their ultimate conclusion was that low-fat diets had no significant difference in terms of weight lost and kept off than any other diet. In fact, the subjects who followed a low-carb diet were about two and a half pounds lighter at the end of the study than their low-fat counterparts.
On average, participants across all dietary test groups only managed to lose about six pounds. This is certainly not enough to combat obesity, but it’s definitely a start.
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Tagged Under: dieting, low carb diet, low fat diet, weight loss
