People who avoid carbohydrates and eat more fat, even saturated fat, lose more body fat and have fewer cardiovascular risks than people who follow the low-fat diet that health authorities have favored for decades, a major new study shows.

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The new study was financed by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It included a racially diverse group of 150 men and women -- a rarity in clinical nutrition studies -- who were assigned to follow diets for one year that limited either the amount of carbs or fat that they could eat, but not overall calories.

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By the end of the yearlong trial, people in the low-carbohydrate group had lost about eight pounds more on average than those in the low-fat group. They had significantly greater reductions in body fat than the low-fat group, and improvements in lean muscle mass -- even though neither group changed their levels of physical activity.

While the low-fat group did lose weight, they appeared to lose more muscle than fat.

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By the end of the yearlong trial, people in the low-carbohydrate group had lost about eight pounds more on average than those in the low-fat group. They had significantly greater reductions in body fat than the low-fat group, and improvements in lean muscle mass -- even though neither group changed their levels of physical activity.

While the low-fat group did lose weight, they appeared to lose more muscle than fat.

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In the end, people in the low-carbohydrate group saw markers of inflammation and triglycerides -- a type of fat that circulates in the blood -- plunge. Their HDL, the so-called good cholesterol, rose more sharply than it did for people in the low-fat group.

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Those on the low-carbohydrate diet ultimately did so well that they managed to lower their Framingham risk scores, which calculate the likelihood of a heart attack within the next 10 years. The low-fat group on average had no improvement in their scores.

Score another one for Atkins, Taubes, et al. Note also that this is a direct refutation of the Food Pyramid the Federal government has been shoving down our throats for years. What else have they gotten wrong? Via A Call for a Low-Carb Diet - NYTimes.com.