Low-fat/high-carb Diet Superior To LCHF In 6-month Chinese Randomized Controlled Feeding Trial

[Mito]

Background
It has been suggested that the increase in carbohydrate at the expense of fat has contributed to the obesity epidemic in North America and some European countries. However, obesity rates in China have increased rapidly in parallel with a transition from the traditional low fat, high carbohydrate diet to a diet relatively high in fat and reduced in carbohydrate. Therefore, the current study aimed to determine whether the traditional Chinese diet was likely to be more effective than a diet with higher fat and lower carbohydrate — which is consumed in most Western societies, at weight control among a non-obese healthy population in China.

Highlights

• A LF-HC diet was associated with a greater weight loss and great reduction in waist circumference than a higher fat, lower carbohydrate diet.
  
  
• Cardiometabolic risk profiles were more favorable on the LF-HC diet than on a higher fat, lower carbohydrate diet.
  
  
• Measures of glycemia were unchanged throughout the trial, regardless if the macronutrient composition.

Effects of Macronutrient Distribution on Weight and Related Cardiometabolic Profile in Healthy Non-Obese Chinese: A 6-month, Randomized Controlled-Feeding Trial

 

[Wagner83]

"While all three dietary interventions were associated with decreases in weight, waist circumference, level of total, LDL, and non-HDL cholesterol, reductions in the LF-HC group were greater than those observed in the MF-MC and the HF-LC groups. HDL cholesterol was also reduced but there were no differences among groups with regard to total to HDL cholesterol ratio"

"Findings from studies in European and North American populations suggesting possible benefits of carbohydrate restriction may not apply to people of other ethnicities."

"That analysis showed a modest but meaningful reduction of body weight (1.6 kg [95% CI − 2.0 to − 1.2]) on the lower fat diets, comparable with that observed in the present study."