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Old July 18th, 2008, 12:22 PM posted to alt.support.diet.low-carb
Hannah Gruen
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Posts: 163
Default Low-carb and Mediterranean diets beat low-fat for weight-loss, lipid changes at two years

Dr. Eades has made some intresting preliminary comments on this study.

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/weight-loss/low-carb-diet-trumps-low-fat-diet-yet-again/

Apparently there are a lot of questions, and the low-carb diet is certainly
not standard LC, because LC participants were asked to raise carb intake to
120 g/day after the initial "induction" period.

Meanwhile, the very-low-fat vegan starch-based diet proponent Dr. McDougall
has come out strongly against the study's conclusions:

http://www.drmcdougall.com/advertising_confuses_public.htm

His primary complaints seem to be that (1) the "low-fat" diet was not really
low-fat, with 30% of calories from fat (his plan runs around 7-10% fat), and
(2) the Atkins Foundation funded the study.

So nobody is happy with this one. I will go with my anectdotal, personal
findings. On McDougall's program I lost quite a bit of weight. But I looked
horrible, with really wrinkled skin, a very aged appearance. I had a lot of
arthritic pain. And worst, I was hungry much of the time, no matter how much
fat-free brown rice and beans I ate. I craved sugar. My hair became thin. My
waistline underwent relative expansion, so I think my pre-existing insulin
resistance worsened.

LC allowed/allows me much easier weight loss, although slower, and my skin
tone and body shape improved very noticeably. Like taking off 5-10 years!
The waist/hip ration improved quickly. I actually found (and still find)
myself eating more vegetables on LC than McDougall. And of course LC does
away with the constant craving for food/sweets/starches. I can still
remember, all these years later, how astonished I was, a couple weeks after
starting LC, upon realizing I had completely forgotten to eat lunch! Never,
never, never could have happened on vlf vegan like McDougall's plan.

Hannah

"Roger Zoul" wrote in message
...
Beer-Sheva, Israel - Both a low-carbohydrate diet or a Mediterranean-style
diet may be "effective alternatives" to a low-fat diet, with more
favorable effects on lipids and/or glycemic control, new research suggests
[1]. The two-year study, which managed to keep almost 85% of the 322 study
participants on one of the three diets for the entire period, offers the
hope that weight-loss diets can be tailored to personal preferences,
without sacrificing efficacy, researchers say.
"Several recent one-year dietary studies have led the American Diabetes
Association to state in January 2008 that low-carb diets should be
considered for a maximum of one year," lead author on the study, Dr Iris
Shai (Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel), told
heartwire. "The current two-year study suggests that one low-fat diet
doesn't fit all, meaning that the old paradigm should be reconsidered."

http://www.theheart.org/viewArticle...._id=tho16jul08