Want to lose weight? It's OK to eat fats with carbohydrates

NEW YORK, Apr 11

By Nancy Deutsch

Some fad diets recommend that people avoid consuming fat and carbohydrates in the same meal. For example, you might eat a hamburger without the bun, and consume bread later in the day.

Now a new study suggests you might as well enjoy the whole burger in all its glory. If weight loss is what you are after, it is not how you separate your food that matters, but what and how much you eat.

In the study, researchers at the University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland found that a diet in which different types of foods were consumed at different times of the day was no more effective than a standard low-calorie diet.

According to the report in the International Journal of Obesity, Dr. Alain Golay and colleagues conclude that 'it is energy intake, not energy composition or distribution throughout daytime, that determines weight loss in response to low-energy diets.'

The researchers admitted 54 obese people to the hospital and divided them into two groups. One group was placed on a standard low-calorie diet (the balanced diet) while the other consumed a similar calorie diet, but avoided eating fat and carbohydrates in the same meal (the dissociated diet).

The participants exercised for two hours daily. At the end of the six week program those on the balanced diet lost the same amount of weight as those on the dissociated diet. Both groups had a similar loss of body fat and an identical reduction in blood sugar, cholesterol and insulin levels. Proponents of diets in which fat and carbohydrates are consumed separately believe that the carbohydrates may promote an increase in the amount of fat stored in cells.

The findings are not surprising, according to Dr. Diane Howlin, a clinical assistant professor of internal medicine in the University of Michigan Health System.

'Finally, these fluke diets are being blown out of the water,' she said in an interview with Reuters Health.

The fact that the researchers had patients stay in hospital and could monitor what they ate should help convince some fad-diet followers that these weight loss programs do not work better than regular diets, she said.

'Only caloric reduction will help a person lose weight. It's more sensible to increase exercise and decrease caloric intake in a balanced way.'

SOURCE: International Journal of Obesity; 2000; 24: 492-496.

(11 Apr 2000 1:55:0 EST)