Those results come from a study involving 23 obese patients with documented
atherosclerotic heart disease. All of the patients were being treated with
choleste3rol-lowering "statin" drugs, but no changes were made to their drugs or
the dosing during the study.
The participants were instructed to consume half of their calories as
saturated fat for 6 weeks. Other food sources were permitted with the exception
of starches, according to a report in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings medical
journal.
The people on the test diet dropped a significant 5.2 percent of their total
body weight and reduced their body fat percentage by a similar amount, note Dr.
James H. Hays and colleagues, from Christiana Care Health Services in Newark,
Delaware.
No changes in LDL ("bad") or HDL ("good") cholesterol levels were observed
with the diet, and it was tied to a significant reduction in total triglyceride
levels.
The high saturated fat, no-starch diet "results in weight loss after 6 weeks
without adverse effects on serum lipid levels...and further weight loss with a
lipid-neutral effect may persist for up to 52 weeks," the Hays' team notes.
"I recommend that we keep an open mind regarding the role of the Atkins diet
and continue to study its metabolic effects," Dr. Gerald T. Gau, from the Mayo
Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, comments in a related editorial. At the same
time, however, he recommends that the value of "more rational diets" should
continue to be studied.
SOURCE: Mayo Clinic Proceedings, November 2003.
