A new study in today’s New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) claims to prove that the only thing that matters is calories in vs. calories out. This is NOT actually true. If you take a look at the actual study in the NEJM you will see TWO enormous problems:
#1. In the “Methods” section it sates: "Carbohydrate-
The authors of this study claim that their study debunks the Atkins’ diet, but you cannot actually eat carb-rich foods on Atkins’ diet, no matter what their glycemic index. So nothing resembling the Atkins’ diet (or the first phase of the South Beach diet for that matter) was actually tested.
#2. All participants were encouraged to slash 750 calories per day from their diet. The underlying premise of low-carb diets is that calories don’t count, only the carbohydrate content does. If you actually wanted to test “low-carb vs. low-fat” then one group would have to go on an actual low-carb diet in the spirit of Dr. Atkins, and one group would have to go on a low-fat diet.
What this study really tested was slightly different low-calorie diets, NONE of the groups actually went on a true low-carb diet, so it is misleading at best for the authors to go around saying things like, “They just need to focus on how much they're eating,” as Dr. Sacks claims.
“If anything, the only thing this study ‘proves’ is that academics don’t know the first thing about how to get people to lose fat. If you look at their results, they are absolutely abysmal across the board. If you’re best advice can only get people down 9 pounds in two YEARS, then you probably need to go back to the drawing board and check your underlying assumptions,”
