All diets can peel off the kilos, but if you want to keep those love handles off, stick to moderate fat, high carbohydrate regimes, a new study says.
Diets like the wildly popular, protein-heavy Atkins diet will help you lose weight in the short run, but you'll gain it back over the long run.
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Further, "unorthodox" diets won't lower your blood pressure or cholesterol in the long run, concludes the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) first comprehensive review of all the most popular diet plans. If you want to keep the weight off and be healthy, traditional weight loss programs are still best, the USDA reports.
"What this report says is that there isn't any magic about the amount of protein or the amount of carbohydrates you eat," says Karen Miller-Kovach, chief scientist for Weight Watchers International in New York, USA. Weight Watchers diet - which focuses on balance among different foods - got the nod from the USDA for having one of the best eating plans among all looked at. "I think most importantly, it's really about establishing an eating pattern that works for you, that keeps the weight off and is healthfully constructed."
The UDSA report, to be released tomorrow, concludes that diets that recommend eating no more than 30 percent of your calories from fat, limiting protein to about 30 percent of total calories, and indulging yourself with fruit, vegetables and complex carbohydrates help satisfy hunger with the least amount of calories. Nutritionally sound, moderate fat, high carbohydrate diets lowered blood levels of cholesterol, blood fats and blood sugars, the study found.
While traditional weight loss programmes recommended by such groups as Weight Watchers and the American Heart Association are supported by science, the USDA's report questions whether unorthodox approaches like the Atkins diet are successful in the long run.
Dr Atkins’s review But Dr Robert Atkins says the report has not done enough research on low-fat, low carbohydrate diets like his. "The report, from what we have heard, and we haven't seen it yet, states the obvious: There is little long-term research on low-carb diets, as well as little long-term research on low-fat diets," Atkins said in a statement.
"We are pleased that the government is sitting down now to fill in the research gaps," Atkins says. "We hope an Atkins-like diet is studied, and we're trying to do our part by contributing our protocols. We are confident that the findings will support what our 40 years of clinical work has shown - that the diet corrects metabolic conditions like diabetes, obesity, hypoglycaemia, high cholesterol and high triglycerides."
Triglycerides are linked to heart disease. "We are comparing apples to nothing because the research that the government is thinking about doing hasn't been done yet," says Atkins. "They are basing their opinion on a literature search that is lacking in low-carb research for long-term safety because the government has chosen not to support these studies.
The Atkins diet was never meant for a normal weight population. Right now we are experiencing an obesity and diabetes epidemic, and the Atkins diet is an alternative to solving these problems."
Mediterranean diet Diets that emphasise fats shouldn't be thrown on the dust heap either, says Marissa Cloutier, author of The Mediterranean Diet, which emphasises olive and other such oils. "What you're really looking at is thousands of years of living in Asia and in the Mediterranean region, where you couldn't get a lot of meat, but people ate a lot of monounsaturated fats, whole grains, fruits and vegetables," Cloutier says. "These diets fall in the USDA guidelines exactly, and these diets also have been observed to cause lower rates of heart disease."
"If obesity is the second-leading preventable cause of death in the US, then why aren't we taking it more seriously as a medical and public health problem?" Miller-Kovach asks. "What I can say is that there does appear to be a wake-up call going on in Washington, even if it is a little late." - (HealthScoutNews)
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