Low-Fat Diet Burns Flab More Effectively Than Low-Carb Diet

Diets that restrict fat consumption are much more effective at reducing overall body fat, U.S. researchers have found in a small clinical study. Nineteen obese adults lived in a metabolic ward for two 2-week periods. Researchers monitored and controlled every bite of food they ate. In each period they ate either a carb-restricted diet or a fat-restricted diet. Measurements of how much fat each participant ate and burned were taken, and the data were used to calculate the rate of body fat loss. 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 researchers cautioned, for a variety of reasons, against making sweeping conclusions about how to diet from the study.