Calories, not Carbs, Count for Weight Loss!
By Betsy Lievense, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent
April 9, 2007
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Looking to lose weight but crazy for carbohydrates? A recent study reveals reducing your calorie intake by 30 percent could result in long-term weight loss, regardless of how many carbs you've consumed.
Glycemic load is the term that refers to the amount of carbohydrates in a food and how quickly that food can be converted to carbohydrates in the body. In order to determine glycemic load's impact on weight loss, researchers at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., randomly assigned 34 overweight men and women to two different diets that restricted how many calories they consumed by 30 percent but still provided them with essential vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids.
The low-glycemic-load (LGL) diet contained 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent fat, and 30 percent protein, while the high-glycemic-load (HGL) diet contained 60 percent carbohydrates, 20 percent fat, and 20 percent protein. In order to increase the overall chance that study participants stuck to the required diet, researchers provided participants with a complete set of meals and snacks. Researchers also made sure each diet was similar in terms of palatability, dietary variety, and fiber.
At six months, researchers report members of the low-carb group demonstrated greater weight loss than their counterparts in the high-carb group, but after 12 months, both groups lost roughly 8 percent of their initial body weight. Study authors found the groups were similar in terms of energy intake, metabolic rate, average body fat loss, and reports of hunger or satiety.
Although dieters in the two groups maintained similar weight loss at 12 months, researchers report members of the low-carb group were more likely to gain back their lost weight, which means a reduced caloric intake may be harder to sustain on a low-carb diet.
Susan Roberts, Ph.D., director of the United States Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging's Energy Metabolism Laboratory, told Ivanhoe this study should show people losing weight and keeping it off is possible, and it can be done in a variety of ways to suit different lifestyles and preferences.
"There isn't one perfect way to lose weight and keep it off," Dr. Roberts said. "That is good news, because it means you don't have to follow a plan you hate, but can shop around for something that works for you personally."
SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Susan Roberts, Ph.D.; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, published online April 6, 2007
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