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Home » Lose Weight » Calories count, but source doesn't matter: study

(Reuters) - People trying to lose weight may swear by specific
diet plans calling for strict proportions of fat, carbs and
protein, but where the calories come from may not matter as
much as simply cutting back on them, according to a study.

Researchers whose results were published in the American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition found there were no differences in
weight
loss or the reduction of fat between four diets with different
proportions of fat, carbohydrates and protein.

"The major predictor for weight loss was 'adherence'. Those
participants who adhered better, lost more weight than those
who did not," said George Bray, at Pennington Biomedical
Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who worked on
the study.

Earlier research had found that certain diets -- in particular,
those with very low carbohydrates -- worked better than others,
Bray told Reuters Health in an email, but there had been no
consensus among scientists.

Bray and his colleagues randomly assigned several hundred
overweight or obese people to one of four diets: average
protein, low fat and higher carbs; high protein, low fat and
higher carbs; average protein, high fat and lower carbs; or
high protein, high fat and lower carbs.

Each of the diets was designed to cut 750 calories a day.

After six months and again at two years after starting the
diets, researchers checked participants' weight, fat mass and
lean mass.

At six months, people had lost more than 4.1 kg (9 lbs) of fat
and close to 2.3 kg (5 lbs) of lean mass, but they regained
some of this by the two-year mark.

People were able to maintain a weight loss of more than 3.6 kg
(8 lbs) after two years. Included in this was a nearly 1.4 kg
(3 lb) loss of abdominal fat, a drop of more than seven
percent.

But many of the people who started in the study dropped out,
and the diets of those who completed it were not exactly what
had been assigned.

For example, the researchers had hoped to see two diet groups
get 25 percent of their calories from protein and the other two
groups get 15 percent of their calories from protein. But all
four groups ended up getting about 20 percent of their calories
from protein after two years.

"If you're happier doing it low fat, or happier doing it low
carb, this paper says it's OK to do it either way. They were
equally successful," said Christopher Gardner, a Stanford
University professor uninvolved in the study.

"They did have difficulties with adherence, so that really
tempers what you can conclude," he added.

In the end, he said, people should choose the diet that's
easiest for them to stick with. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/zUm9ep

(Reporting from New York by Kerry Grens; editing by Elaine Lies
and Ron Popeski)

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Calories count, but source doesn't matter: study

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