A recent study published on Annals of Internal Medicine has found that a low-carb diet is better for heart health and weight loss and is deemed better than low-fat diet options.
According to the study's lead author, Dr. Lydia Bazzano, if people will get proper nutritional counseling, "[they] can lose more weight and lower their risk factors for heart disease on a low-carbohydrate diet."
"This study shows if you are overweight and have cardiovascular disease risk factors and haven't had success on other diets, certainly a low-carbohydrate diet is worth a try," Bazzano said in a statement in Reuters.
The findings of this study trumps the previous fears of researchers that although a low-carb diet produces greater weight-loss results, it can be risky for the heart as it can be high in fat.
Bazzano and fellow researchers invited almost two hundred obese men and women, aged 22 to 75 with no record of cardiovascular disease or diabetes.
The researchers randomly picked half of the group to undergo a low-carb diet for one year, while the other half went under a low-fat diet discipline, without changing any activity or habit throughout the year.
Both groups went to regular meetings where nutritionists taught them how to eat properly and keep a nutritious diet. Scientists also controlled data by making sure that "the only difference between the groups was the proportions of carbohydrate and fat in their diets."
The participants seemed keen on keeping their end during the whole year study. According to the results, four out of five volunteers were still abiding by the diets that were assigned to them.
In the analysis of Medscape, the low-carb diet group's body weight was greatly reduced, had "significantly greater reduction in body weight, significantly greater proportional reductions in fat mass, and significantly greater relative in lean mass."
However, it also noted that the "total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and plasma glucose levels did not change significantly in either group, nor did blood pressure levels significantly decrease in either group."
Banzzano's group also did not see any significant increase in the amounts of bad cholesterol from the low-carb diet group nor the low-fat diet group and noted that this may dispel previous claims that a low-carb diet might have an increasing effect on the cholesterol level of a person.
Also, the study observed that the people who took the low-carb diet had truncated levels of fat circulation in the blood. They also saw that these people registered lower scores on the Framingham risk score, which was often used by experts to predict heart attack or stroke risks in a period of ten years.
Researchers have concluded that a low-carb diet can produce weight loss no matter the ethnic background of the person is.
"[T]his 12-month randomized, parallel-group trial showed that a low-carbohydrate diet resulted in greater weight loss and reduction in cardiovascular risk factors than a low-fat diet among obese black and white adults," they said.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Medscape Medical News, Dr. Tian Hu recommended a low-carb diet for those who wanted a healthier lifestyle.
"Our findings suggest that people who want to lose weight and have risk factors for heart disease could consider a low-carbohydrate diet as an option to both lose weight and improve those risk factors," he said.
