Obese and diabetic patients lose more weight on a high fat diet compared to a high carbohydrate diet

This study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine 2004 May 18;140(10):778-85

Study title and authors:

The effects of low-carbohydrate versus conventional weight loss diets in severely obese adults: one-year follow-up of a randomized trial.

Stern L, Iqbal N, Seshadri P, Chicano KL, Daily DA, McGrory J, Williams M, Gracely EJ, Samaha FF.

Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, and Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15148064

This study, of one years duration, compared the effects of of either a high carbohydrate diet or high fat diet on 132 obese adults of whom 83% had diabetes or the metabolic syndrome.

After one year the composition of the two diets was:
(i) 50% carbohydrate, 16% protein, 34% fat (high carbohydrate diet).
(ii) 30% carbohydrate, 18% protein, 52% fat (high fat diet).

The study found:
(a) Those on the high fat diet lost an extra 2 kg compared to those on the high carbohydrate diet.
(b) The unhealthy triglyceride levels decreased by 28.2% on the high fat diet, whereas they increased by 2.7% on the high carbohydrate diet.
(c) The unhealthy high HbA1C levels decreased by an extra 9.6% in diabetic patients on the high fat diet compared to the high carbohydrate diet.

This study shows that a high fat diet had produced more favourable health outcomes for obese and diabetic patients compared with a high carbohydrate diet.