Dietary recommendations no cure for obesity
Baku, November 30 (AZERTAC). If you want to lose weight or avoid gaining weight, you should cut down on finely refined starch calories such as white bread and white rice and instead eat a diet that is high in proteins with more lean meat, low-fat dairy products and beans. This is the result of a new extensive European diet study headed by researchers from University of Copenhagen. The study thereby confronts the official dietary recommendations and concludes that they are not sufficient for preventing obesity.
Eat fruit, vegetables and fish and go easy on the fat. Eat a balanced diet and maintain a normal weight. These are some of the official dietary recommendations in Europe, including Denmark. Now researchers from Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE) at University of Copenhagen have demonstrated that the dietary recommendations are not sufficient to prevent obesity. The results have just been published in the distinguished New England Journal of Medicine.
A total of 772 families, comprising 938 adult family members and 827 children, participated in the European Diogenes diet study. This makes it the largest controlled random study in the world. The study was conducted by eight European research centres. The objective of the study has been to compare the official dietary recommendations in Europe, including the Danish recommendations, with a diet based on the latest knowledge about the importance of proteins and carbohydrates for appetite regulation.
The Diogenes study shows that the current dietary recommendations are not good enough to prevent overweight persons from gaining weight. If you are to maintain your weight or avoid regaining weight after slimming, you must choose the right diet type, explains Associate Professor Thomas Meinert Larsen, PhD, from Department of Human Nutrition, LIFE at University of Copenhagen who has headed the Diogenes study together with Professor Arne Astrup, DrMedSc and Head of Department at LIFE.
The 938 overweight adults initially followed an 800 kcal/day diet for eight weeks, losing an average of 11 kg. They were then randomly assigned to one of five different low-fat diet types which they followed for six months in order to test which diet was most effective at preventing weight regain. Throughout the project, the families received expert guidance from dieticians and were asked to provide blood and urine samples.
Of the 938 adult participants, 548 completed both the initial weight-loss phase and the subsequent six-month diet intervention where they were assigned to different diet types. The average weight regain among the participants was 0.5 kg but there were significant differences from diet type to diet type.
When it comes to the recommendations that you should eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, low-fat foods, plenty of fibre and limit your sugar intake, the new research results are in line with the official dietary recommendations. But this is not sufficient if you want to maintain your weight.
Potatoes, the national staple food in Denmark, should be cooked as little as possible. Therefore, new potatoes are particularly good and it is a good idea to eat them cold. The same goes for pasta which should be cooked `al dente` and preferably eaten cold.
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