[quote]actionjeff wrote:
This isn’t even a study! The author just draws unfounded conclusions from nothing as usual with these type of articles[/quote]
It’s a survey Jeff and does cite specific studies. For example:
[quote]“Finally, a recent randomised, balanced, two diet study compared effects of isocaloric, energy-restricted ketogenic and low-fat diets on weight loss and body composition in overweight/obese men (n = 15) and women (n = 13) [20]. Despite significantly greater calorie intake (1855 vs. 1562 kcal/day), both between and within group comparison revealed a distinct advantage of a ketogenic diet over a low-fat diet for weight loss/fat loss for men. In fact, 5 men showed more than 10 pounds difference in weight loss. Majority of women also responded more favourable to the ketogenic diet, especially in terms of trunk fat loss. Furthermore, the individual responses revealed that three men and four women who did the ketogenic diet first, regained body mass and fat mass after the switch to the low-fat, whereas no subjects regained weight or fat mass after switching to the ketogenic diet.”
- Volek JS, Sharman MJ, Cómez AL, et al.: Comparison of energy-restricted very-low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets on weight loss and body composition in overweight men and women. Nutr Metab (Lond) 2004, in press.[/quote]
And:
[quote]In 1965, Benoit et al. published the first systematic study of the effect of a very-low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diet on composition of weight loss [21]. They observed that when a 1,000-kcal ketogenic diet (10 g of carbohydrates/day) was fed for 10 days, their seven male subjects lost an average of 600 g/day, of which 97% was fat.
- Benoit FL, Martin RL, Watten RH: Changes in body composition during weight reduction in obesity. Balance studies comparing effects of fasting and a ketogenic diet.
[/quote]
And, if you’d bothered to read past the first paragraph you’d have found a study with equal protein / varying carb diets:
[quote]Young et al. compared 3 isoenergetic (1,800 kcal/day) and isoprotein (115 g/day) diets differing in carbohydrate content (30, 60, and 104 g/day) [22]. After 9 weeks on the 30-g, 60-g, and 104-g carbohydrate diets, weight loss was 16.2, 12.8, and 11.9 kilograms and fat accounted for 95%, 84%, and 75% of the weight loss, respectively.
- Young CM, Scanlan SS, Im HS, et al.: Effect on body composition and other paramete[rs in obese young men of carbohydrate level of reduction diet. Am J Clin Nutr 1971, 24:290-296.[/quote]
Granted those results were in an obese population but they should be food for thought rather than an object of ridicule, particularly given the rather dramatic nature of the fat losses described.
I, too, would like to see that last study repeated in a large trained population over a longer time frame under controlled conditions but I doubt we’ll see the perfect science on this any time soon.