Weight loss programs that provide healthy fats, such as olive oil in the Mediterranean diet, or a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet have similar impacts on pound-shedding.

‘Weight loss programs that provide healthy fats, such as olive oil in the Mediterranean diet, or a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet have similar impacts on pound-shedding.’

Cheryl Rock, principal investigator of the study, published this week in the Journal of the American Heart Association, said, "Many diets have said it is okay to eat healthy fats and emphasize olive and canola oils. What we found is that a diet high in healthy oils did lower lipids, but it also lowered both good and bad cholesterol." 




Overweight and obese adult women were enrolled in a one-year behavioral weight loss program and randomly assigned to one of three diets consisting of either: low-fat and high-carbohydrate; low-carbohydrate and high-fat; or a walnut-rich, high-fat and low-carbohydrate diet.
The findings showed that all three dietary plans promoted similar weight loss. Insulin-sensitive women lost the most weight with a low-fat diet but that strategy did not result in the most benefit for lipid levels.
The walnut-rich diet had the most impact on cholesterol levels by decreasing low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or bad cholesterol, and increasing beneficial high-density lipoprotein (HDL). The high-fat, low-carb group, which consumed monounsaturated fats, did not experience the same beneficial effects as the walnut-rich diet, which featured polyunsaturated fatty acids.
At six months, the average weight loss was almost 8% among all groups.
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Insulin sensitivity was assessed in the study because people who are overweight usually have some degree of insulin resistance. Higher amounts of insulin are more likely to cause cells to lose their ability to regulate growth, a precursor to cancer.
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Source-Newswise