The new study, Newsweek reports, has been conducted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, a government agency. The study examined the eating habits of people trying to lose weight and considered their diet options. For the study the researchers took 19 obese adults for a two-week inpatient trial (a “metabolic ward” study). Here the participants are kept in controlled conditions and subject to around-the-clock supervision.
The study concluded that both diets where the fat content is reduced and where the carbohydrate content is reduced led to weight loss. However, when the two regimes were compared, those that maximized fat reduction led to the fastest and greatest weight loss.
The argument in favor of a low carb diet is that fewer carbohydrates leads to lower levels of insulin, which in turn leads to fat being released from the body’s stores. However, according to Dr Kevin Hall, from the U.S.-based National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, who was interviewed by the BBC, this is dietary approach less effective than the reduction of fat.
In the research summary, the scientists state: “study participants lost even more body fat during the fat-restricted diet, as it resulted in a greater imbalance between the fat eaten and fat burned. These findings counter the theory that body fat loss necessarily requires decreasing insulin, thereby increasing the release of stored fat from fat tissue and increasing the amount of fat burned by the body.”
The study’s findings have been published in the journal Cell Metabolism. The paper is headed “Calorie for Calorie, Dietary Fat Restriction Results in More Body Fat Loss than Carbohydrate Restriction in People with Obesity.”
