Low-Fat Diet can Lead to Greater Body Fat Loss Than Carbohydrate Restriction

To lose weight, one needs to follow certain dietary restrictions along with exercise. Nutritionists often recommend a low-carb diet that reduces insulin and increases fat burning. However, contrary to this popular belief, a new study has revealed that restricting dietary fat can lead to greater body fat loss than carbohydrate restriction. One of the researchers Kevin Hall from National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of US National Institutes of Health (NIH), said, "A lot of people have very strong opinions about what matters for weight loss, and the physiological data upon which those beliefs are based are sometimes lacking. I wanted to rigorously test the theory that carbohydrate restriction is particularly effective for losing body fat since this idea has been influencing many people's decisions about their diets."

For the study, the research team confined 19 consenting adults with obesity to a metabolic ward for two dieting periods of two weeks each. At the end of the two dieting periods, they found that body fat lost with dietary fat restriction was greater compared with carbohydrate restriction, even though more fat was burned with the low-carb diet.

The study was published in Cell Metabolism.

Source-IANS