Research suggests cutting calories may help people lose weight regardless of diet.
ABC World News (2/25, story 7, 1:50, Gibson) reported, "In the battle over carbs and protein and fat, a new study basically says forget all that. Just pick a plan, any good plan, and then here's the critical part. Stick to it." NBC Nightly News (2/25, story 6, 2:55, Snyderman) added that researchers found that "regardless of diet, participants lost an average of 13 pounds in six months and maintained a nine-pound weight loss at two years."
The finding, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, "could finally end the often-contentious debate over the comparative effectiveness of diets that" are "marked by...specific configurations," such as those that "are predominantly low in fat, high in protein," or "low in carbohydrates," the Los Angeles Times (2/26, Roan) reports. And, because "the study did not prove...that every dieter succeeds," it "reinforces numerous other studies showing most people lose a modest amount of weight in the first few months of dieting and regain some or all of the weight over time."
USA Today (2/26, Hellmich) notes that in order to compare diet programs, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and Louisiana State University "recruited 811 overweight or obese older adults and put them on one of four diet plans, including two low-fat diets with 20 percent of calories from fat and two high-fat plans with 40 percent of calories from fat." Each diet included between 35 percent and 65 percent of "calories from carbohydrates," as well as "15 percent or 25 percent of calories" from protein. Participants "adhered to heart-healthy guidelines" and maintained "modest" exercise goals that included "about 90 minutes of moderate physical activity a week."
"Each plan cut about 750 calories from a participant's normal diet, but no one ate fewer than 1,200 calories a day," the New York Times (2/26, A16, Parker-Pope) points out. Lead author Dr. Frank M. Sacks, a professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at Harvard, explained that the researchers reduced bias by not "associating any of the diets with well-known commercial eating plans." Instead, the "plans were all loosely based on the principles of popular diets like Atkins, which emphasizes low carbohydrates; Dean Ornish, which is low-fat; or the Mediterranean diet, with less animal protein." Meanwhile, participants "also received group or individual counseling."
According to the AP (2/26, Chang), "There was no winner among the different diets; reduction in weight and waist size were similar in all groups."
Canada's CTV (2/26), the UK's Telegraph (2/26, Smith), the Baltimore Sun (2/26, Brewington), CNN (2/26, Park), Time (2/25, Sharples), MedPage Today (2/25, Phend), WebMD (2/25, Doheny), and Scientific American (2/25, Ballantyne) also covered the story, as did the Boston Globe (2/25, Cooney) White Coat Notes blog.
The finding, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, "could finally end the often-contentious debate over the comparative effectiveness of diets that" are "marked by...specific configurations," such as those that "are predominantly low in fat, high in protein," or "low in carbohydrates," the Los Angeles Times (2/26, Roan) reports. And, because "the study did not prove...that every dieter succeeds," it "reinforces numerous other studies showing most people lose a modest amount of weight in the first few months of dieting and regain some or all of the weight over time."
USA Today (2/26, Hellmich) notes that in order to compare diet programs, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and Louisiana State University "recruited 811 overweight or obese older adults and put them on one of four diet plans, including two low-fat diets with 20 percent of calories from fat and two high-fat plans with 40 percent of calories from fat." Each diet included between 35 percent and 65 percent of "calories from carbohydrates," as well as "15 percent or 25 percent of calories" from protein. Participants "adhered to heart-healthy guidelines" and maintained "modest" exercise goals that included "about 90 minutes of moderate physical activity a week."
"Each plan cut about 750 calories from a participant's normal diet, but no one ate fewer than 1,200 calories a day," the New York Times (2/26, A16, Parker-Pope) points out. Lead author Dr. Frank M. Sacks, a professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at Harvard, explained that the researchers reduced bias by not "associating any of the diets with well-known commercial eating plans." Instead, the "plans were all loosely based on the principles of popular diets like Atkins, which emphasizes low carbohydrates; Dean Ornish, which is low-fat; or the Mediterranean diet, with less animal protein." Meanwhile, participants "also received group or individual counseling."
According to the AP (2/26, Chang), "There was no winner among the different diets; reduction in weight and waist size were similar in all groups."
Canada's CTV (2/26), the UK's Telegraph (2/26, Smith), the Baltimore Sun (2/26, Brewington), CNN (2/26, Park), Time (2/25, Sharples), MedPage Today (2/25, Phend), WebMD (2/25, Doheny), and Scientific American (2/25, Ballantyne) also covered the story, as did the Boston Globe (2/25, Cooney) White Coat Notes blog.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sohair Abdel-Rahman on
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I lost 7 kilos in a month just reducing the amount I used to eat,with some walking every day.Just by reducing 500 cal /day and increase your basal metabolic rate by more moving around and walking,..... reduce the weight on long run.
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Study indicates obese teens may face double the risk of dying early.
The New York Times (3/4, Rabin) reports that, according to a study published in this week's British Medical Journal, "young men who were overweight at age 18 were as likely to die by 60 as light smokers, while obese teens, like heavy smokers, were at double the risk of dying early." For the study, researchers at Sweden's Karolinska Institute "tracked the death rates of 45,920 Swedish men over 38 years," and "found that men who were obese when they signed up for service in the Swedish Army in 1969 and 1970 were at more than twice the risk of dying by age 60, compared with those who were of normal weight." This equates to approximately "the same increase in risk faced by normal-weight recruits who smoked half a pack of cigarettes or more a day." By comparison, "recruits who were overweight but did not smoke were about one-third more likely to die prematurely."
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Experts discuss rapid increase in childhood, maternal obesity, diabetes.
MedWire (3/3, Albert) reported that at a joint meeting of the Endocrinology & Diabetes and Pediatrics & Child Health Sections of the Royal Society of Medicine in London, "experts discussed the concerning rapid increase in childhood and maternal obesity and diabetes." During the morning session, Chris Patterson of Queens University, Belfast, "discussed the increasing incidence of Type 1 diabetes in children aged zero to four years," explaining that "type 1 diabetes is most common in affluent countries," and "the incidence of childhood onset type 1 diabetes has doubled in the last 20 years." During the afternoon session, experts from two UK hospitals "addressed the worrying increase in maternal obesity and previously undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, and their impact on both maternal and child health," noting that "children of mothers with diabetes (type 1, 2, or gestational) in pregnancy are more glucose intolerant than other children, and" are "at increased risk for type 2 diabetes in later life."
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Cardiovascular disease death rates may be greatest in highest and lowest categories of BMI in people with type 2 diabetes, study suggests. MedWire (3/3, Grice) reported that, according to a study published in the journal Heart, "total and cardiovascular disease death rates are greatest in highest and lowest categories of body-mass index (BMI) in people with type 2 diabetes." For the study, researchers from the VP Komisarenko Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the Ukraine "analyzed data from the Ukrainian population-based diabetes register," grouping "a total of 30,534 Ukrainian men and 58,909 women receiving treatment with insulin or an oral antidiabetes agent...into five BMI categories (less than 23.0, 23.0–24.9, 25.0–29.9, 30.0–34.9, and greater than 35.0 kg/m2)." After adjusting for "age, smoking, and alcohol intake, the authors found that, for both men and women, the risk for total and cardiovascular mortality was lowest in people who were in the overweight BMI category (25.0-29.9 kg/m2)," and the "highest mortality risk was seen in people with BMI values less than 23.0 kg/m2, or greater than 35.0 kg/m2."
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