Claim high-fat diets can prevent diabetes 'unproven'

Conclusions This small trial aimed to see whether there is a difference between strictly controlled low-GI diets that contain the same amount of energy, but are either predominantly fat or carbohydrate based. Overall, researchers found the diets caused both weight and fat reduction, with little difference between the two – with the exception of minor differences in certain blood sugar and cholesterol markers, the significance of which is difficult to interpret. These could just be down to chance. The researchers were careful to control the diets and other lifestyle aspects to try to ensure any observed effects were only coming from the diets. However, the trial had a couple of important limitations. For one, it was very small to start with, even before losing an extra eight to follow-up. As the researchers acknowledged, the study may not have had sufficient numbers to reliably detect differences in outcomes between the groups. The groups also included a specific group of overweight to obese men, so the effects in these people may not be comparable with other populations. Most importantly, short-term measures of weight, blood sugar and body fat at three months tell you nothing about the possible longer-term effects. This means you can't conclude anything about a person's risk of diabetes or cardiovascular disease in the longer term. Little can be concluded from this relatively brief, small study. It certainly doesn't change our current understanding about diet and hea...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Diabetes Food/diet Source Type: news