A lot of people who are trying to lose weight follow the popular low-carb diet to achieve their goal; but a new study comparing the particular diet with low-fat diet finds that the latter might just be slightly more advantageous than the former.
The study was conducted by researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health led by Kevin Hall, a metabolism researcher, and the findings now appear in the journal Cell Metabolism.
Supporters of the low-carbohydrate diet believe that the most effective way to lose fat is to cut down on carbohydrate consumption and go on with high-fat consumption.
The reason behind this is that when the body receives lesser amounts of carbohydrates, the insulin levels decrease, which consequently leads to a more effective and a faster way to burn fat.
However, the new study found it to be the opposite. In fact, those who go on a low-fat, high-sugar diet lost fat more effectively compared to individuals who observed a low-carb, low-sugar diet.
For their study, researchers enlisted a rather small group of participants — 19 obese people who were 35 years old on the average and had them under strict, controlled monitoring.
For the first five days of the trial, these people consumed a baseline of 2,740 calories per day. Carbohydrates comprised 50 percent of the calories, fat comprised 35 percent and protein 15 percent.
The participants then observed the same diet but their calorie intake was reduced by 30 percent by limiting carbohydrate consumption.
The participants took a few weeks break from the diet and again went to consume the same baseline calories for five days.
For six days, the participants then observed a diet low in fat, with 30 percent reduced calories from limited fat consumption.
At the end of the study period, researchers found that participants from the low-fat group shed off an average of 463 grams of fat, while the low-carb group lost 245 grams of fat.
According to the researchers, it is too early to set recommendations on which of the diets people should follow to achieve effective weight loss.
The take home message is that both diets are effective for weight loss, but the study points out that people should not solely depend on low-carb diet.
Whatever diet a person thinks is doable should be the diet to follow.
