The massive revival of interest in controlled carbohydrate approaches to weight management that flowered in the 1990s has provoked exciting new research. And the results have only fueled the fire. The metabolic advantage is very real.
Five studies are worth noting. The relevance of the first four of these is limited by the fact that the carbohydrate content of the "low" carbohydrate diet being studied was still a good deal higher than you would experience during the first weight loss phase of Diet. Therefore the metabolic advantage was relatively small, though it still existed. One study done in Glasgow described overweight women who after three months had lost 14.5 pounds on a thirty-five-percent carbohydrate diet of 1,200 calories and 12.3 pounds on a fifty-eight-percent carbohydrate diet of 1,200 calories. That's fairly slow weight loss and pretty strict caloric deprivation. The advantage went to the lower-carbohydrate diet as always, but the lesson is that stricter carbohydrate control makes for an even more successful weight loss plan.
Three other recent examples also didn't go low enough in carbs and thus had limited metabolic advantage, but two facts should be noted: First, in all cases, the lower-carbohydrate group did lose more weight than the higher-carbohydrate group. Studies that show the opposite are, believe me, more rare than pink elephants in the streets of Boise. Second, in two of the studies cardiovascular risk factors improved significantly-but only in the subjects who were on a lower-carbohydrate intake. The folks who got put on a high-carbohydrate diet showed no significant improvements in these health indicators.
Five studies are worth noting. The relevance of the first four of these is limited by the fact that the carbohydrate content of the "low" carbohydrate diet being studied was still a good deal higher than you would experience during the first weight loss phase of Diet. Therefore the metabolic advantage was relatively small, though it still existed. One study done in Glasgow described overweight women who after three months had lost 14.5 pounds on a thirty-five-percent carbohydrate diet of 1,200 calories and 12.3 pounds on a fifty-eight-percent carbohydrate diet of 1,200 calories. That's fairly slow weight loss and pretty strict caloric deprivation. The advantage went to the lower-carbohydrate diet as always, but the lesson is that stricter carbohydrate control makes for an even more successful weight loss plan.
Three other recent examples also didn't go low enough in carbs and thus had limited metabolic advantage, but two facts should be noted: First, in all cases, the lower-carbohydrate group did lose more weight than the higher-carbohydrate group. Studies that show the opposite are, believe me, more rare than pink elephants in the streets of Boise. Second, in two of the studies cardiovascular risk factors improved significantly-but only in the subjects who were on a lower-carbohydrate intake. The folks who got put on a high-carbohydrate diet showed no significant improvements in these health indicators.
