http://www.sciencedaily.com/release...41115003038.htm

Very Low-carbohydrate Diets Work For Men And Upper Body Fat
Science Daily — Scientists say that low carbohydrate diets, like the Atkins and South Beach Diets, may actually be the best option for men who want to slim. New research, published this week in the Open Access journal, Nutrition & Metabolism, shows that over 70% of men lost more weight and fat on a low carbohydrate diet, despite eating more calories.

Jeff Volek and colleagues, from the University of Connecticut, also show for the first time that a low carbohydrate diet is much more effective in losing fat from the stomach and chest. Upper body fat carries "a greater health risk than fat stored in other regions of the body," say the authors. They found that fat loss in men was three-times greater in the trunk area, when they were on a low-carbohydrate regime compared to the low-fat diet. Nearly all participants in the study (12 of 15 men and 12 of 13 women) lost more fat on their upper body on the low- carbohydrate diet.

Fifteen overweight or obese men, and thirteen women, were randomly assigned to a very low carbohydrate diet or a low fat diet. After fifty days, they were switched to the other diet. 11 of the 15 men did better on the low carbohydrate diet, six lost greater than 10 lbs more on the low carbohydrate diet, and one subject lost almost 25 pounds more. Similar results were found for women although the results were less dramatic.

Volek and colleagues also looked at whether weight and fat loss were affected by what order the diets were done in. Their data seem to favour undertaking a low carbohydrate first, suggesting that those who have concerns about long term 'low carb' diets could follow a low carb diet first followed by a low fat diet.

There is much debate about the health implications of long-term use of low carbohydrate diets. Volek's lab, whose work is the first-ever to be funded in part by the Robert C. Atkins Foundation, has previously shown that low carbohydrate diets improve cardiovascular risk factors.

For more information about low carbohydrate diets read the review by well-known endocrinologist, Samy McFarlane, in Nutrition & Metabolism. Dr McFarlane reviews the new book, 'Atkins Diabetes Revolution', by Mary C. Vernon, M.D. and Jacqueline A. Eberstein, R.N. McFarlane and co-reviewer Surender Arora, M.D. found the book "sufficiently convincing to make us believe that some form of low carbohydrate intervention is worth investigating and should be considered by practitioners. The highly negative un-scientific response of critics, if anything, encourages us in this direction."

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This press release is based on:

Comparison of energy-restricted very low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets on weight loss and body composition in overweight men and women Volek JS, Sharman MJ, Gómez AL, Judelson DA, Rubin MR, Watson G, Sokmen B, Silvestre R, French DN, and Kraemer WJ.Nutrition & Metabolism 2004, 1:12 (9 November 2004)

The article is freely available at http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/1/1/12.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by BioMed Central.

I read what you posted. I have to say that my husband who has been following this diet with me has lost a lot of his belly/upper body weight. He seems to be happy because I add a little extra mayo or butter to his vegies and he "feels" like he is eating really good. His shape has changed a lot.

The link at the bottom of the post isn't to that article, but a review of what is known about visceral versus abdominal fat which was quite interesting.

The article is actually #13, not 12. Looking over that issue though, there is much interesting stuff for the LCer to read.

So after I successfully lose my weight with a low carb approach, I should switch to the low fat diet that not only failed me, but made me fatter for years?

No thanks. I think I will stick to what has me in the best shape of my life. :P

Critics will say conflict of interest or a biased study.

I think people lose weight all over, it just more noticeable in the thick areas so the more you lose on a diet, or the better its working the more it shows. For me the gut is the last area to go. They didn't say if switching back to low-fat caused subjects to gain?

I had a male colleague who absolutely swore by lc. It could also have a lot to do with the fact that many men are keener on meat than on beans and whole grains, LOL.

since i've been doing the Atkins Diet most of the weight i've lost, if not all, was from my upper body. Below, i am mostly muscle because of exercice.

i no longer have a beer belly, which is good.

i needed to sew a button on my pants to make them tighter around the waist. I won't buy new pants until Christmas (my GOAL).

tchÉ :-)

Perhaps because he is! While Atkins is described by critics as the bacon and pork rinds diet, it would be much more accurate to describe it as the veggie and butter diet!

Atkins is far closer to my instinctively best diet, certainly it's close than the low-fat diet my doctor recommended twenty years ago, and which quite likely caused me to gain weight, lose energy, and quite possibly start to clog up my arteries. To be fair, eating low fat was a constant struggle, and I fell off the wagon frequently.

And that's part of the point. For me, there is no comparison between low-fat high-sugar ice cream and full fat no-sugar ice cream. (As to the low-fat version, why even bother?)

While broccoli plain is okay, with butter it's a treat.

A steak with marbled fat compared to one which is very lean.

You know, it's been said that eating low-carb is more expensive.

And it probably is. Higher quality food can be expected to cost more! (Other things being equal. It's about supply and demand, though thirty years of low-fat propaganda has eased the demand for butter and cream. Their loss is my gain, unfortunately. I'd gladly pay more if the result was a healthier community.)

Want your husband to live long and happy? Help him to eat well, and "well" doesn't mean "balanced" according to the warped recommendations of the industrial-political complex. It means delicious food with plenty of fresh vegetables, enough protein, and plenty of fat. Fat and protein and the good stuff in veggies are essential nutrients. Carbs aren't, we don't need them at all (not digestible carbs, fiber is more important.)

re: expense

Read Regina Wilshire's recent follow-up post to the food stamp challenge (feed your family for $3 each per day) where she puts their annual food costs at just over $4/day - that's with grass-fed products.

weightoftheevidence

I think there's no question it's much cheaper to eat low-carb. $1.99/lb for faux-ripe tomatoes, $2.99 for a plastic bag full of baby spinach greens...are you kidding me? That wouldn't keep my turtle alive.

The egg section and the meat aisle are the most economical areas in a supermarket.

Supermarkets are fully of highly processed foods that are highly profitable. I've lived at the bottom end of food cost. I remember discovering that chicken scratch, consisting of corn, milo, and wheat, was quite edible and, at the time, cost five cents per lb.

If you compare pure foods that are low carb with highly processed high carb foods, it's misleading. People who are very poor don't eat a lot of meat! Think tortillas, maybe home-made, and beans.

My point was that high-quality food can be expected to be more expensive, other things being equal, because of demand. I think that low-carb foods, right now, are artificially low in price, here in the U.S., because the demand is suppressed by all the propaganda. All the schools are now providing low-fat milk. This has got to be inflating the price of low-fat milk and suppressing the price of full-fat. Not to mention cream!

Sure, you can eat *relatively* inexpensively a low-carb diet, but not as inexpensively as you could eat high-carb, almost certainly. But if you want to insist that the diet be healthy, the balance shifts. A very inexpensive high-carb diet may keep starvation away, but over the long run, health may suffer. If the person is very active, such as working in fields to grow food, the damage may be much less than if they are sedentary....

The purpose of my comment was to counter the implications of assertions in various places that low-carb is expensive -- which you can show by analyzing the costs of items in Atkins-recommended meals -- by noting the "expensive" is not contrary to "healthy," indeed, we might expect the healthiest diet to be more expensive than some less healthy diets.

Food is not necessarily the best place to economize, unless you have no other option. But if you have been eating highly-processed foods, snack foods, and all that high-carb stuff that inundates us in supermarkets and convenience stores, then, yes, you might find a low carb diet to be somewhat cheaper. But that's not an argument for low-carb, it's an argument for staying away from the highly processed foods.

High-fructose corn syrup is cheap. Butter is expensive. Which one is better for you?