Press release
Thursday, January 21, 2021
People on a low-fat, vegetable diet ate fewer calories a day, but had higher levels of insulin and blood glucose, compared to when they ate a low-carb, animal-based diet, according to a small but highly controlled at the National Institutes of Health. Led by researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Renal Diseases (NIDDK), the study compared the effects of the two diets on calorie intake, hormone levels, body weight and more. The findings, published in Nature medicine, expand your understanding of how restriction of dietary carbohydrates or fats can affect health.
“It is believed that high-fat foods result in an excess of calorie intake because they have a lot of calories per bite. Alternatively, foods high in carbohydrates can cause large changes in blood glucose and insulin that can increase hunger and lead to overeating, ”said Kevin Hall, senior researcher at NIDDK, lead author of the study. study was designed to determine whether high-carb or high-fat diets lead to higher calorie intake. “
The researchers housed 20 adults without diabetes for four consecutive weeks in the Metabolic Clinical Research Unit of the NIH Clinical Center. Participants, 11 men and nine women, received a low-fat plant-based diet or an animal-based low-carb diet for two weeks, followed immediately by two weeks on the alternative diet. The low-fat diet was high in carbohydrates. The low carb diet was high in fat. Both diets were minimally processed and had equivalent amounts of starch-free vegetables. Participants were given three meals a day, plus snacks, and could eat whatever they wanted.
The main results showed that people on a low-fat diet ate 550 to 700 fewer calories a day than when they ate a low-carb diet. Despite large differences in calorie intake, participants did not report differences in hunger, meal enjoyment, or fullness between the two diets. Participants lost weight on both diets, but only the low-fat diet resulted in significant loss of body fat.
“Despite eating food with a high amount of high glycemic carbohydrates that caused pronounced changes in blood glucose and insulin, people who ate a low-fat plant-based diet showed a significant reduction in their intake of calories and body fat loss, which challenges the idea that high-carb diets by themselves lead people to overeat. On the other hand, the animal-based, low-carb diet did not result in weight gain despite being high in fat, ”Hall said.
These findings suggest that the factors that cause overeating and weight gain are more complex than the amount of carbohydrates or fats in the diet. For example, Hall’s lab showed last year that a diet rich in ultra-processed foods involved overeating and gaining weight compared to a minimally processed diet that matched carbs and fats.
The low-fat plant-based diet contained 10.3% fat and 75.2% carbohydrates, while the low-fat animal-based diet was 10% carbohydrate. carbon and 75.8% fat. Both diets contained approximately 14% protein and were compared to the total calories presented to the subjects, although the low-carbohydrate diet had twice as many calories per gram of food as the low-fat diet. On the low-fat menu, dinner can consist of baked sweet potatoes, chickpeas, broccoli and oranges, while a low-carb dinner can be fried beef with cauliflower rice. Subjects could eat what and no matter how much they chose from the meals they were given.
“Interestingly, our findings suggest benefits for both diets, at least in the short term. While the plant-based low-fat diet helps curb appetite, the animal-based, low-carbohydrate diet resulted in lower and more stable insulin and glucose levels, ”said Hall. “We still don’t know if these differences will persist in the long run.”
The researchers note that the study was not designed to make dietary recommendations for weight loss, and the results could have been different if participants had actively tried to lose weight. In addition, all meals were prepared and provided to participants in a hospital setting, which may make it difficult to repeat out-of-laboratory outcomes, where factors such as food cost, food availability, and food constraints meal preparation can make it difficult to adhere to diets. However, the tightly controlled clinical environment ensured the objective measurement of food intake and the accuracy of the data.
“To help us get good nutrition, rigorous science is key – and it is of special importance now, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, as we aim to identify strategies that will help us stay healthy,” he said. say NIDDK Director Griffin P. Rodgers, MD “This study brings us closer to answering long-standing questions about how what we eat affects our health.”
The research was supported by the NIDDK Intramural Research Program. The additional NIH grant came from the National Nursing Research Institute with grant 1Z1ANR000035-01.
Regarding the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Renal Diseases (NIDDK): The NIDDK, a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), conducts and supports research on diabetes and other endocrine and metabolic diseases; digestive diseases, nutrition and obesity; and kidney, urologic, and hematologic diseases. Covering the full spectrum of medicine and affecting people of all ages and ethnic groups, these diseases encompass some of the most common, serious, and disabling conditions that affect Americans. For more information about NIDDK and its programs, see http://www.niddk.nih.gov.
Regarding the National Institutes of Health (NIH):
NIH, the country’s medical research agency, includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the leading federal agency that conducts and supports basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
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References
Hall KD, et al. Effect of a plant-based ketogenic diet versus an animal-based ketogenic diet on ad libitum energy intake. Nature medicine. January 21, 2021.