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VIDEO: Low-carbohydrate diet does not produce preferential fat loss
NEW ORLEANS — In this video exclusive, Kevin D. Hall, PhD, section chief, Integrative Physiology Section, Laboratory of Biological Modeling, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, discusses results from two clinical trials assessing the carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity.
Based on the model, researchers predicted that a low-carbohydrate diet, compared with a low-fat diet, would result in preferential loss of body fat and increased energy expenditure. However, it was the low-fat diet that led to the greater loss of fat, and the low-carbohydrate diet led to decreased energy expenditure.
“There may still be effects on appetite, which weren’t measured in this study, and there’s a variety of potential health benefits for such low-carbohydrate diets, primarily because they decrease insulin, decrease circulating triglycerides and whatnot,” which were not tested, Hall said. “But these very specific predictions of the carbohydrate-insulin model turned out to not be true.”