"Hannah Gruen" wrote:

... I know some of the criticism has revolved around the fact that none
of the 3 diets tested were done in a way that satisfied all proponents of
such diets.

Thinking about this since it came out I've ended up at a
different vewpoint than my initial reaction. The low carb
group ended up at 120 grams per day after a couple of
months at 20. That's not a weight loss diet at all. In
fact for me it isn't even a maintenance level. But there
are plenty of people who do have 120 as a maintenance
level.

LC had too many carbs. LF wasn't low enough. Etc.

Since the LC group was a maintenance group, I don't
think the intent was to compare loss phases at all. I
think the intent was to compare the impact of the
maintenace phases on long term health. Since the
experiement lasted 2 years it was too long for just doing
loss phases for any of the plans.

Given the experiment is about the maintenance phase
(inferred but not mentioned in the abstract) the fact that
there was an average loss on all of the plan types is
nice but irrelevant. I'd want to know what percentage
regained not what the mean value is. Since it's not
about loss all the mean value means is the ones with
net loss out numbered the ones with net gain, and it
was number of pounds in each direction that got out
numbered not number of subjects.

Being a comparison of the maintenance phases, the
health markers other than average loss are all more
important results.

Overall it
seems to have been a reasonable effort, but had caloric intake differed
substantially from group to group, that would have been a different story,
wouldn't it have?

There is precedent from prior studies that LC groups do
not get instruction to reduce total calories by LF groups
do. Neither of us agrees with that precedent but that
precedent seems to be the source for it.

Why take that chance?

I wonder about encouraging low carbers to cut total
calories. I think about posters to ASDLC over the years -
Some have wanted to use the appetite suppression of
ketosis to drive their calorie intake levels down to
starvation levels with minimum or no discomfort. I
would certainly hesitate to push a group of low carbers
to reduce calories if I were in charge of an experiment
in fear of harming someone with an eating disorder I
hadn't detected.