Taking a second look at low-carb for weight maintenance Original paper
This Study Summary was published on September 4, 2020.
Background
The carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity hypothesizes that, by increasing insulin-promoting fat storage, refined and high-glycemic carbs are major contributors to people failing to maintain their weight loss. Thus, a low-carb diet might allow for greater weight stability after a period of weight loss.
The study
It was an analysis of a secondary outcome of a previously published randomized trial of 234 overweight participants.[1] It analyzed the estimated caloric requirements of participants on either a low- or high-carb diet during a weight-maintenance period.
The results
The average estimated caloric requirements were about 245 kcal/day higher in the low-carb group than in the high-carb group. However, the interindividual variability was high (43–446 kcal/day in the low-carb group).
Note
Some of the methodology used in the original trial has been hotly contested. We analyzed the original trial in NERD: For weight maintenance, is low-carb king?
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This Study Summary was published on September 4, 2020.
References
- ^Ebbeling CB, Feldman HA, Klein GL, Wong JMW, Bielak L, Steltz SK, Luoto PK, Wolfe RR, Wong WW, Ludwig DSEffects of a low carbohydrate diet on energy expenditure during weight loss maintenance: randomized trialBMJ.(2018 Nov 14)