Study Suggests Eat Less To Lose Weight
Los Angeles – Landmark study results published in The New England Journal of Medicine suggest that weight loss can be achieved by just cutting calories from diet.
Recent clinical study sponsored by National Institute of Health (National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute) was conducted by researchers and experts from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, part of the Louisiana State University system.
This was a controlled study carried out in 811 overweight subjects for two years. Subjects were randomly divided by chance into four different arms. Four arms consisted of different combinations of diet consisting of fat (containing 20 % to 40 % of calories), proteins (containing 15 % to 25 % of calories) and carbohydrates (containing 35% to 65 % of calories). Subjects were also advised to have whole grains, fruits, vegetables and at least 20 gms of fibers daily.
Patients were later randomized to one of the arms and around 750 calories were cut from their normal diet. Attention was given that patients at least had minimum required calories – 1220 per day. Diet counseling was provided to the patients in group or individually. These diets were not named in particular, but the principals of these diets were the same of Atkins diet (low carbohydrates), Ornish diet (low fats), or Mediterranean diet (low animal protein). Subjects were asked to track their diet by filling on-line diary.
Study results were evaluated after two years and it was found that each of these arms had lost or gained same amount of weight. On an average subjects had lost approximately 13 pounds in six months. It was also determined that subjects had maintained 9 pounds of weight loss and 2 inch drop in waist size for the entire study duration. Overall more than 15 percent of subjects had lost more than 10 percent of their weight. Apart from losing weight, researchers also found out that Cardiological risk factors were decreased. Blood cholesterol levels were monitored after six months and two years and there was improvement in cholesterol levels. Pathological reports indicated that HDL levels (good cholesterol) had increased, LDL levels (bad cholesterol) had Triglyceride levels had decreased.
Clinical study report was evaluated by researchers which inferred that it doesn’t matter to which diet an individual adopts; important is to cut on calories. Subjects were contended with the diets and felt similar levels of fullness and satisfaction. The advantage of this study is that people get the liberty to choose their diet and not give up the things that they like.
There are number of factors like psychological, biological, social or economical that influences the weight gain. Important is to manage weight and stay healthy.