Low-fat diet ‘better than cutting carbs’

A LOW-FAT diet beats carb-cutting as the most effective way to slim, research has shown.

The dilemma over which strategy to adopt has taxed many a weight -watcher.

While reducing carbohydrate lowers insulin levels and burns fat, avoiding fatty foods delivered better results overall, scientists found.

The findings, from a study of 19 obese volunteers, confirmed the predictions of an earlier computer simulation conducted by the same team.

Lead scientist Dr Kevin Hall, from the US National Institute of Diabetes and Dige st ive and K idney Diseases, said: “I wanted to rigorously test the theory that carbohydrate restriction is particularly effective for losing body fat since this idea has been influencing many people’s decisions about their diets.”

The researchers watched every morsel of food eaten by the volunteers over a pair of two-week periods.

During the first two weeks, 30 per cent of participants’ original daily calorie intake was cut through carbohydrate restriction alone while fat consumption remained the same.

Over the following two weeks, conditions were reversed. Again, calories were cut by 30 per cent, but this time by reducing the amount of fat eaten. Carbohydrate consumption was unaltered.

Body fat loss as a result of dietary fat restriction was significantly greater than that achieved by cutting carbs, the results reported in the journal Cell Metabolism showed.

This was despite the fact that more fat was burned with the low carbohydrate diet. However, the simulations predicted that over long periods of time the body was likely to try to minimise body fat differences between the two diets.

“Our results showed that not all calories are created equal when it comes to body fat loss, but over the long term, it’s pretty close,” said Dr Hall.