| Low-fat diets are recommended for heart health, but according to a study a moderate-fat weight loss diet reduced dieters' cardiovascular risk better than the low-fat diet.
The study found that the moderate-fat diet produced a 14 percent reduction in cardiovascular disease risk, while the low-fat group experienced a nine percent improvement. Both groups of the study lost 2.4 to 2.7 pounds a week on average because the researchers controlled the diets.
The study consisted of 53 overweight or obese people with cholesterol levels elevated above 200 at the start of the diet. The participants ate either a low-fat or moderate-fat diet for a six-week period to determine weight loss in each group. After the six weeks, they ate similar diets designed for maintenance for four weeks. The participants' food, which was provided by the research team, consisted of 18 percent of calories from fat in the low-fat diet and 33 percent of calories from fat in the moderate-fat diet.
During the study, researchers found the low-fat diet group experienced a 12 percent decrease in HDL (good) cholesterol, whereas the moderate-fat diet group had no change in their cholesterol. Researchers say that this indicates that a moderate-fat diet blunts the decrease in HDL cholesterol during the weight loss.
Researchers also found, after the decrease in HDL cholesterol, triglycerides rose greatly during the four-week maintenance phase for those participants on the low-fat diet, but not for those on the moderate-fat diet. When triglycerides elevate they become a cardiovascular risk factor, which means even though the low-fat diet successfully reduced the risk factors during the six-week weight loss phase of the study, those factors rebounded during the last four-week maintenance phase of the study.
Researchers believe the outcome of this study is significant because it demonstrated clearly that lowering total fat intakes could have adverse consequences on reductions in the risk of cardiovascular disease.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, February, 2004;79(2):204-212
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