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But Teicholz and others who criticize traditional low-fat wisdom get a lot of pushback.
When Teicholz
argued
in the BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, that the
committee assigned to develop the recent dietary guidelines "abandoned established
methods for most of its analyses," the nutrition advocacy group Center for Science in the
Public Interest called her article a "discredited and opinionated attack" and demanded a
retraction. (After the BMJ had two scientists review Teicholz's original article, it recently
announced it would stand by the article.)
The question remains whether it's better to stick to a low-fat or a low-carb diet to lose
weight and stay healthy. For Christopher Gardner, professor of medicine at Stanford
Prevention Research Center, it depends on a lot of complex factors.
Photo: Courtesy Clover
Organic Whole Milk at Clover
Gardner is wrapping up a five-year study that included putting
600
overweight and
obese adults on either a low-fat diet or low-carb diet for a year, depending on which one
they thought would be most successful based on each subject's insulin resistance. They
weren't given a specific guidance on calorie restrictions, but the average reduction was
500
calories per day.
Overall, the weight-loss results of each diet were almost identical, says Gardner. What
surprised him most was how different people responded within each diet. In one group,