Low-fat diets not best for weight loss, study says, as focus shifts to carbs

Low-fat diets do not yield greater weight loss than other slimming regimes, said a study on Friday, adding to the long-running debate on how best to shed extra kilos.

A review of 53 scientific studies, covering nearly 70,000 adults in several countries, found “no good evidence for recommending low-fat diets,” said lead author Deirdre Tobias of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts.

“The science does not support low-fat diets as the optimal long-term weight loss strategy.”

In fact, low-carbohydrate diets led to greater weight loss than low-fat ones, according to study results published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal.

Weight loss on a low-fat diet was just 360 grammes, compared to 1.15kg on a higher-fat, low-carbohydrate eating plan.

As the world's population grows ever fatter, the quest for an easy weight-loss plan has taken a high priority.

Dietary fat has long been targeted, said the study, for the reason that every gram of it contains more then double the calories of a gram of carbohydrates or protein.

But research through the years has yielded contradictory results.