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Is There a Best Diet for Premenopausal Women?

One of the longest running debates in the field of nutrition is whether specific diets, especially low-carbohydrate diets, have a “metabolic advantage”.  By this I mean that they can somehow cause more fat loss at the same calorie level as other diets.   A recent study looking at different types of diets in pre-menopausal women is currently making the rounds and people are using it to claim exactly that.  So let’s look at the following study in some detail:

Gardner CD et. al. Comparison of the Atkins, Zone, Ornish, and LEARN diets for change in weight and related risk factors among overweight premenopausal women: the A TO Z Weight Loss Study: a randomized trial. JAMA. (2007) 297(9):969-77.

Low-Carbohydrate Diets and the Metabolic Advantage

As I said above, a long-standing debate is over whether or not specific diets, especially low-carbohydrate diets have a metabolic advantage.  This is an idea that came out of very early, very poorly done research where water loss was confused with real weight and fat loss. … Keep Reading