Sunday, September 28, 2014

A Call for a Low-Carb Diet That Embraces Fat

A Call for a Low-Carb Diet That Embraces Fat - NYTimes.com
People who avoid carbohydrates and eat more fat, even saturated fat, lose
more body fat and have fewer cardiovascular risks than people who follow
the low-fat diet
that health authorities have favored for decades, a major
new study shows.
....By the end of the yearlong trial, people in the low-carbohydrate group
had lost about eight pounds more on average than those in the low-fat
group.
They had significantly greater reductions in body fat than the low-fat
group, and improvements in lean muscle mass — even though neither group
changed their levels of physical activity.
While the low-fat group did lose weight, they appeared to lose more
muscle than fat.
“They actually lost lean muscle mass, which is a bad thing,”
Dr.
Mozaffarian said.
“Your balance of lean mass versus fat mass is much more
important than weight.
And that’s a very important finding that shows why
the low-carb, high-fat group did so metabolically well.”
The high-fat group followed something of a modified Atkins diet.
They were told to eat mostly protein and fat, and to choose foods with primarily
unsaturated fats, like fish, olive oil and nuts. But they were allowed to eat
foods higher in saturated fat as well, including cheese and red meat.

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