Low-carb diets and low-fat diets have the same effects on patients who go through them, a recent study released in The Journal for the American Medical Association suggests.
After a wave of low-carb diets in recent years (from the very popular Atkins to the South Beach one and even the Paleo diet) and a wave of low-fat diets before it, there have been many trends for losing weight, particularly taking into account the obesity epidemic in the United States.
The group of scientists, led by PhD and assistant professor of clinical epidemiology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario Bradley C. Johnston, analyzed 59 different medical articles proposing the superiority of low-fat diets versus low-carb diets and vice versa; these studies had included a total of 7286 individuals. They were then compared between both groups (low-carb diets versus low-fat diets) and with those following no diets.
There was a six-month follow-up to all subjects, which ultimately showed there was no significant difference between one type of diet and the other after that period: the differences were actually minimal. It was found that, actually, significant weight loss could be gained from either one of the dieting methods, after seeing all participants lost an average of 18 pounds.
Among the conclusions of the study was that the practice of "recommending any diet that a patient will adhere to in order to lose weight" is the key among these fad diets; basically, whatever the patient is most willing to endure and makes more sense for them.
However, nutritionists such as Linda Van Horn of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago (who wrote an editorial on the study) recommend following a diet full of both carbs and fats, as the goal should be health rather than just aggressively losing weight. As such, she recommends not following fad nutrition trends, whether they are low-carb diets or low-fat ones.
