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High-protein, low-carb diet curbs hunger: study
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A study in obese men suggests that a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet is most effective for curbing hunger and promoting weight loss.
High-protein intake promotes satiety and, when combined with very low carbohydrate intake, causes the body to use fat reserves, often resulting in short-term weight loss, the researchers note in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
"Hunger is one of the main reasons diets fail, thus understanding more about appetite control during dieting will allow us to design diets that achieve weight loss, without feeling hunger," Dr. Alexandra M. Johnstone told Reuters Health.
Johnstone, of the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, United Kingdom, and colleagues compared hunger, appetite, and weight loss measures in 17 obese men. The men, aged 38 years on average, lived in a nutrition laboratory setting while they participated in two short-term diet interventions.
The men could freely chose the amount of food they ate from carefully prepared daily meals containing 30 percent of energy from protein and either low-carbohydrate content (4 percent) or medium-carbohydrate content (35 percent), plus respective fat contents of 66 percent and 35 percent.
During the first 4-week period, the men were randomly assigned to the high-protein, low-carbohydrate meals or the high-protein, moderate-carbohydrate meals. They then followed a month-long fixed, mandatory maintenance diet before crossing over to the opposite carbohydrate-level diet for a second 4-week period.
While weight-loss occurred with both diets, the high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet resulted in greater weight loss and less hunger.
The investigators are using these findings to help them further assess the brain's link with hunger in follow-up studies utilizing brain imaging.
The current results, Johnstone and colleagues say, confirm that high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets result in satiety and weight loss, but they suggest that high-protein diets only be followed for short periods and under medical supervision as they are not suitable for everyone.
SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, January 2008
Reuters Health