You’d think that scientists at an international conference on obesity would know by now which diet is best, and why. As it turns out, even the experts still have widely divergent opinions.
At a recent meeting of the Obesity Society, organizers held a symposium during which two leading scientists presented the somewhat contradictory findings of two high-profile diet studies. A moderator tried to sort things out.
In one study, by Christopher Gardner, a professor of medicine at Stanford, patients were given low-fat or low-carb diets with the same amount of calories. After a year, weight loss was the same in each group, Dr. Gardner reported.
Another study, by Dr. David Ludwig of Boston Children’s Hospital, reported that a low-carbohydrate diet was better than a high-carbohydrate diet in helping subjects keep weight off after they had dieted and lost. The low-carbohydrate diet, he found, enabled participants to burn about 200 extra calories a day.
Some people thrive on low-fat diets, others do best on low-carb diets. Still others succeed with gluten-free diets or Paleo diets or periodic fasts or ketogenic diets or other options on the seemingly endless menu of weight-loss plans.
Most studies comparing diets have produced results like Dr. Gardner’s: no difference in weight loss between study groups as long as the calorie intake was kept equal. But within each group, there always have been a few individuals who lost a lot of weight, a few who did not lose any weight, and a few who actually gained.
Dr. George Bray, an obesity researcher who is emeritus professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., sums it up this way: “Eat the diet you like and stay with it.”
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Continue reading the main story
There is nothing new in the diet universe.
Many of the diets people swear by today have been around in various incarnations for decades. More than a century ago, a best-selling book, “How to Live,” told Americans that the only way to lose weight was to count calories.
Low-carbohydrate diets were introduced by a London undertaker, William Banting, in 1863 and became so popular that one word for dieting was “banting.”
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Diet studies are insanely difficult.
Most are short-term, and often it is hard to know if subjects really adhere to the plans they were given. Few studies follow participants for a year or more to see if they kept the weight off. Little of this research is ever definitive, and most of it leaves plenty of room for skepticism, argument and debate.
Any diet that restricts calories will result in weight loss, but some diets simply are not healthy even if you are shedding pounds
They also agree that people with diabetes or high blood sugar levels often benefit from a diet low in carbohydrates.
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What we don’t know
Why do people have such varying responses to diets?
Is it genes? Dr. Gardner looked at participants in his study to see if he could find genes that predicted their responses to their assigned diets. He could not. Other scientists also have failed to find particular genetic predictors.
Continue reading the main story
That does not mean there are no genes involved in diet and weight loss. But it is hard to disentangle those effects from other possibilities. Motivation, for instance: One person may be mentally ready to diet, while another might make only a halfhearted effort, surrendering to temptation after a short time on the assigned diet
No one wants to regain the weight so painfully lost. The problem is that the body fights to get back the fat, lowering the metabolic rate and driving a voracious appetite.
Dr. Ludwig was trying to ameliorate this effect with a low-carbohydrate diet. Whether it worked is still subject to scientific debate, and for now the question is still open.
ответ: любые аьзацы перепиши и все
Объяснение:
You’d think that scientists at an international conference on obesity would know by now which diet is best, and why. As it turns out, even the experts still have widely divergent opinions.
At a recent meeting of the Obesity Society, organizers held a symposium during which two leading scientists presented the somewhat contradictory findings of two high-profile diet studies. A moderator tried to sort things out.
In one study, by Christopher Gardner, a professor of medicine at Stanford, patients were given low-fat or low-carb diets with the same amount of calories. After a year, weight loss was the same in each group, Dr. Gardner reported.
Another study, by Dr. David Ludwig of Boston Children’s Hospital, reported that a low-carbohydrate diet was better than a high-carbohydrate diet in helping subjects keep weight off after they had dieted and lost. The low-carbohydrate diet, he found, enabled participants to burn about 200 extra calories a day.
Some people thrive on low-fat diets, others do best on low-carb diets. Still others succeed with gluten-free diets or Paleo diets or periodic fasts or ketogenic diets or other options on the seemingly endless menu of weight-loss plans.
Most studies comparing diets have produced results like Dr. Gardner’s: no difference in weight loss between study groups as long as the calorie intake was kept equal. But within each group, there always have been a few individuals who lost a lot of weight, a few who did not lose any weight, and a few who actually gained.
Dr. George Bray, an obesity researcher who is emeritus professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., sums it up this way: “Eat the diet you like and stay with it.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
There is nothing new in the diet universe.
Many of the diets people swear by today have been around in various incarnations for decades. More than a century ago, a best-selling book, “How to Live,” told Americans that the only way to lose weight was to count calories.
Low-carbohydrate diets were introduced by a London undertaker, William Banting, in 1863 and became so popular that one word for dieting was “banting.”
CLIMATE FWD:: Our latest insights about climate change, with answers to your questions and tips on how to help.
Sign Up
Diet studies are insanely difficult.
Most are short-term, and often it is hard to know if subjects really adhere to the plans they were given. Few studies follow participants for a year or more to see if they kept the weight off. Little of this research is ever definitive, and most of it leaves plenty of room for skepticism, argument and debate.
Any diet that restricts calories will result in weight loss, but some diets simply are not healthy even if you are shedding pounds
They also agree that people with diabetes or high blood sugar levels often benefit from a diet low in carbohydrates.
[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]
What we don’t know
Why do people have such varying responses to diets?
Is it genes? Dr. Gardner looked at participants in his study to see if he could find genes that predicted their responses to their assigned diets. He could not. Other scientists also have failed to find particular genetic predictors.
Continue reading the main story
That does not mean there are no genes involved in diet and weight loss. But it is hard to disentangle those effects from other possibilities. Motivation, for instance: One person may be mentally ready to diet, while another might make only a halfhearted effort, surrendering to temptation after a short time on the assigned diet
No one wants to regain the weight so painfully lost. The problem is that the body fights to get back the fat, lowering the metabolic rate and driving a voracious appetite.
Dr. Ludwig was trying to ameliorate this effect with a low-carbohydrate diet. Whether it worked is still subject to scientific debate, and for now the question is still open.