Low-Carb Diets Are Working, Study Says
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| Tue, 10-14-2003 - 1:23am |
By DANIEL Q. HANEY, AP Medical Editor
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - The dietary establishment has long argued it's impossible, but a new study offers intriguing evidence for the idea that people on low-carbohydrate diets can actually eat more than folks on standard lowfat plans and still lose weight.
Perhaps no idea is more controversial in the diet world than the contention — long espoused by the late Dr. Robert Atkins — that people on low-carbohydrate diets can consume more calories without paying a price on the scales.
Over the past year, several small studies have shown, to many experts' surprise, that the Atkins approach actually does work better, at least in the short run. Dieters lose more than those on a standard American Heart Association plan without driving up their cholesterol levels, as many feared would happen.
Skeptics contend, however, that these dieters simply must be eating less. Maybe the low-carb diets are more satisfying, so they do not get so hungry. Or perhaps the food choices are just so limited that low-carb dieters are too bored to eat a lot.
Now, a small but carefully controlled study offers a strong hint that maybe Atkins was right: People on low-carb, high-fat diets actually can eat more.
The study, directed by Penelope Greene of the Harvard School of Public Health and presented at a meeting here this week of the American Association for the Study of Obesity, found that people eating an extra 300 calories a day on a very low-carb regimen lost just as much during a 12-week study as those on a standard lowfat diet.
Over the course of the study, they consumed an extra 25,000 calories. That should have added up to about seven pounds. But for some reason, it did not.
"There does indeed seem to be something about a low-carb diet that says you can eat more calories and lose a similar amount of weight," Greene said.
That strikes at one of the most revered beliefs in nutrition: A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. It does not matter whether they come from bacon or mashed potatoes; they all go on the waistline in just the same way.
Not even Greene says this settles the case, but some at the meeting found her report fascinating.
"A lot of our assumptions about a calorie is a calorie are being challenged," said Marlene Schwartz of Yale. "As scientists, we need to be open-minded."
Others, though, found the data hard to swallow.
"It doesn't make sense, does it?" said Barbara Rolls of Pennsylvania State University. "It violates the laws of thermodynamics. No one has ever found any miraculous metabolic effects."
In the study, 21 overweight volunteers were divided into three categories: Two groups were randomly assigned to either lowfat or low-carb diets with 1,500 calories for women and 1,800 for men; a third group was also low-carb but got an extra 300 calories a day.
The study was unique because all the food was prepared at an upscale Italian restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., so researchers knew exactly what they ate. Most earlier studies simply sent people home with diet plans to follow as best they could.
Each afternoon, the volunteers picked up that evening's dinner, a bedtime snack and the next day's breakfast and lunch. Instead of lots of red meat and saturated fat, which many find disturbing about low-carb diets, these people ate mostly fish, chicken, salads, vegetables and unsaturated oils.
"This is not what people think of when they think about an Atkins diet," Greene said. Nevertheless, the Atkins organization agreed to pay for the research, though it had no input into the study's design, conduct or analysis.
Everyone's food looked similar but was cooked to different recipes. The low-carb meals were 5 percent carbohydrate, 15 percent protein and 65 percent fat. The rest got 55 percent carbohydrate, 15 percent protein and 30 percent fat.
In the end, everyone lost weight. Those on the lower-cal, low-carb regimen took off 23 pounds, while people who got the same calories on the lowfat approach lost 17 pounds. The big surprise, though, was that volunteers getting the extra 300 calories a day of low-carb food lost 20 pounds.
"It's very intriguing, but it raises more questions than it answers," said Gary Foster of the University of Pennsylvania. "There is lots of data to suggest this shouldn't be true."
Greene said she can only guess why the people getting the extra calories did so well. Maybe they burned up more calories digesting their food.
Dr. Samuel Klein of Washington University, the obesity organization's president, called the results "hard to believe" and said perhaps the people eating more calories also got more exercise or they were less apt to cheat because they were less hungry.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Medical Editor Daniel Q. Haney is a special correspondent for The Associated Press.


Disclaimer: I'm not knocking Atkins or anyone who is finding success on the Atkins diet. I'm only saying it's not for me.
After reading and hearing so much about the Atkins Diet, I never tried it. I couldn't imagine sticking to it, and it didn't sound all that healthy for my life style and as a lifetime diet. I think of this as a little more like Atkins with veggies.
All in all, whatever works to keep you healthy is good for your body. Given the variations of bodies, environments in which we live, and cultures, that
All of those low fat meats mentioned brought to mind what Dr. A said in the SBD book about eating low fat proteins.
Catherine
I've done the Atkins Diet before and had great success on it, but I think there are two keys to doing it successfully (one of which I didn't do):
1. It should be a short term diet not a way of eating for life. Studies have shown that you should drink extra water and make sure your potassium levels remain normal, or you can have serious kidney damage. I know of someone who had that happen. Also, long term it leaches calcium from your bones, so you can lose height as well as weight (not a good thing, particularly for women as we get older).
2. Once you've reached your goal weight, you must ease back into eating carbs very gradually or all the weight (and possibly more) will come back on pretty quickly.
Another note, people who've tried Atkins more than once don't seem to have as much success on follow-up attempts as they did on the first go-round. Don't know why that is, and it may not effect everyone that way.
Rhonda
Time invested in improving ourselves cuts down on time disapproving of others.
~~Rhonda~~
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Atkins is meant to be a way of eating for life. If you go off of it, you will gain everything back. If the program is followed correctly, there is no danger to the kidneys, but the key word is "correctly". Do it incorrectly, and you can harm your body. It is sad that people go about telling everyone how bad a way of eating is, when they are just going by what they have heard, and have not taken the time to find out the facts of how the program really works.
I would never dream of telling someone how the South Beach Diet works, unless I had actually read up on the facts of the plan. It wouldn't matter to me what I had "heard" about it--the facts are much more reliable than hearsay.
Each person must find what is right for them, and what works for them as an individual. Please don't go around badmouthing a plan just because it's what you heard. Get the facts, then if it's worth trashing based on the facts, go for it.
I know that you said your post was not meant for anyone in particular, but I'm still going to reply. I'd never actually read much about the 4 phases on Atkins, so thanks for the post. However, it still involves way too much counting and looks like a "diet" to me. To me, food is wonderful, and I don't want to have to count too much of this or that when I want to enjoy eating. For one thing,