International Journal of Obesity (2005) 1-9
M Petersen, MA Taylor, WHM Saris, C Verdich, S Toubro, I Macdonald, S Rossner, V Stich, B Guy-Grand, D Langin, JA Martinez, O Pedersen, C Holst, TIA Sørensen, A Astrup and The Nugenob Consortium
Objective: To investigate whether a hypo-energetic low-fat diet is superior to a hypo-energetic high-fat diet for the treatment of obesity.
Design: Open-label, 10-week dietary intervention comparing two hypo-energetic (-600 kcal/day) diets with a fat energy percent of 20–25 or 40–45.
Subjects: Obese (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) adult subjects (n = 771), from eight European centers.
Measurements: Body weight loss, dropout rates, proportion of subjects who lost more than 10% of initial body weight, blood lipid profile, insulin and glucose.
Results: The dietary fat energy percent was 25% in the low-fat group and 40% in the high-fat group (mean difference: 16 (95% confidence interval (CI) 15–17)%). Average weight loss was 6.9 kg in the low-fat group and 6.6 kg in the high-fat group (mean difference: 0.3 (95% CI -0.2 to 0.8) kg). Dropout was 13.6% (n = 53) in the low-fat group and 18.3% (n = 70) in the high-fat group (P = 0.001). Among completers, more subjects lost 410% in the low-fat group than in the high-fat group ((20.8%, n = 70) versus (14.7%, n = 46), P = 0.02). Fasting plasma total, low-density lipoprotein- and high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol decreased in both groups, but more so in the low-fat group than in the high-fat group. Fasting plasma insulin and glucose were lowered equally by both diets.
Conclusions: The low-fat diet produced similar mean weight loss as the high-fat diet, but resulted in more subjects losing 410% of initial body weight and fewer dropouts. Both diets produced favorable changes in fasting blood lipids, insulin andglucose.