This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Calories count most in weight loss

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

ADA 71st Scientific Sessions

SAN DIEGO — While debate continues over which diet, such as low-carbohydrate or reduced fat, induces the most weight loss, new data suggest that decreasing calorie intake is the most important factor.

Researchers in New Zealand studied 419 people aged 30 to 76 years with type 2 diabetes and a BMI of at least 27. Participants were randomly assigned to a low-fat, high-protein diet or to a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. Participants also attended twice-weekly group sessions led by dietitians for 6 months and then monthly for the following 6 months. Both interventions aimed to reduce each participant’s caloric intake by 500 kcal per day. Participants made their own food selection based on a set of guidelines provided to them by the researchers with the goal of mimicking a “real-world” setting.

After 2 years, the researchers observed comparable decreases in weight (–2 kg change from baseline), waist circumference (high protein: –2.2 cm; high-carbohydrate: –2.9 cm), body fat percentage and HbA1c in all participants from baseline, particularly during the first 6 months. There were no apparent differences, however, between groups for any of these outcomes. Total cholesterol and triglycerides exhibited different patterns of change throughout the study, but the ultimate results were similar, the researchers said.

“This large community-based, randomized, controlled dietary intervention study has shown that in patients with type 2 diabetes prescription of a high-protein diet with a group-based dietitian-led support and education program deliverable in a real-world setting, does not promote greater weight loss than the prescription of a high-carbohydrate diet,” the researchers wrote.

Instead of focusing on diet type, they said, further research into how to sustain decreased caloric intake in a flexible manner is needed, as long-term weight loss is the ultimate goal for patients with diabetes. – by Melissa Foster

For more information:

• Krebs JD. 783-P. Presented at: American Diabetes Association’s 71st Scientific Sessions; June 24-28, 2011; San Diego, Calif.

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.

This study indicates that it really doesn’t seem to make a difference what the composition of the diet is. It is just important that diabetics decrease their overall calorie intake. That is what I basically tell my patients — that it does not really matter where you get your calories from; you just have to reduce the calories. If I tell a patient to eat 1,800 calories a day and he or she eats 3,000 calories, regardless of whether it is fruits and vegetables or 3,000 calories of candy, it is still too many calories. This study just confirms that it is respecting the calories that is more important than where the calories are coming from.

- Brian First, MD
Endocrinologist in private practice
San Diego, Calif.

Disclosure: Dr. First reports no relevant financial disclosures.

Follow EndocrineToday.com on Twitter.