What’s better — low-fat or low-carb? If dieting has been a part of your life, you probably know that’s the question that’s plagued people trying to lose weight and get healthier. Well, now we have a better answer — sort of — than ever before. Berkeley Wellness reports on a huge new clinical trial from Stanford University comparing healthy low-fat diets to healthy low-carb diets.
The study’s findings were almost anticlimactic:
[T]here was no clear winner, and contrary to expectations, genetics and insulin sensitivity didn’t predict who would fare best on each diet. The good news: Both healthy diets produced similar moderate weight loss that was sustained for a year, and both were designed so that people could follow them for the rest of their lives.
On average, members of the two groups in the trial lost 12 or 13 pounds, and members of both reduced their calorie intake over time. Berkeley Wellness notes that “they weren’t instructed to cut calories — it just happened when they focused on high-quality foods that satisfied their hunger.”
Researchers also did genetic testing on study participants and measured their insulin levels, and they hope to learn more about how those factors influence a particular diet’s effectiveness for individuals. In the meantime, your best bet is to fret less about whether to go low-fat or low-carb, and just have lots of veggies; cut way back on added sugar and refined grains; and eat whole, unprocessed foods as often as possible.