Reduced-calorie diets helps you lose weight, no matter what proportions of fat, protein or carbohydrate it contains

The study was the work of researchers from the Preventing Overweight Using Novel Dietary Strategies (POUNDS LOST) study, and was based at Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, and at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisianna to reflect the diverse range of culinary preferences from the two regions. The study was published online in the 26 February issue of the New England Journal of Medicine and was funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health.

The last few decades have seen an unprecedented surge in different kinds of diet for weight loss, with different emphases on protein, fat and carbohydrate intake, but there are no prolonged studies that compare the relative advantages of such regimens.For this study the researchers randomly assigned 811 overweight adults aged 30 to 70 to one of four diets, each with different calorie targets for fat, protein and carbohydrate, as follows:

- Low-fat, average protein: 20 percent fat, 15 percent protein, 65 percent carbohydrate.
- Low-fat, high protein: 20 percent fat, 25 percent protein, 55 percent carbohydrate.
- High-fat, average protein: 40 percent fat, 15 percent protein, 45 percent carbohydrate.
- High-fat, high-protein: 40 percent fat, 25 percent protein, 35 percent carbohydrate.

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