TAGS
The study, which is planned to last 48 weeks, includes 146 outpatients from the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center. All have a body mass index 27 kg/m2 or greater, and 46 of the patients also have type 2 diabetes. Their mean age is 56 years (range, 48–64 years); the majority are male, and roughly half are black. In the 6 months that the trial has been ongoing, weight loss with both regimens has been similar (10–12 kg) and so has the reduction in waist circumference.
So, we’ve got patients on two radically different diets who have lost about the same amount of weight and, presumably, from the same areas. Yet the subgroup of these patients who have type II diabetes did radically better on the low-carb diet.
After 24 weeks, the mean HbA1c among the 22 type 2 diabetes patients in the low- carb arm dropped from 7.5% to 6.8%, a significant reduction. The HbA1c in the 24 type 2 diabetes patients in the orlistat arm went from 7.6 to 7.4, and did not fall significantly from baseline.
And more of the patients on the low-carb diet were able to get completely off their diabetic meds.
These are pretty impressive statistics when you consider that all the changes can be attributed to the diet composition and not simply the weight loss since both groups lost the same weight.
Is it just me or do you also find it interesting that this study wasn’t picked up by the press and disseminated everywhere as the Atkins diet study was? I wonder why not? It was the same type of presentation – a poster – at a major scientific meeting attended by hordes of reporters. Yet this study never made prime time news – only a throw-away medical journal.
Type II diabetes has reached staggering epidemic proportions in this country, and even kids are now starting to get what used to be called Adult Onset Diabetes (type II). It seems like the results of this study would be big news to those fighting the disease. Could it be that the press has an anti-low-carb bias? It certainly makes one wonder.
.
