Insulin Test May Reveal Best Diet Approach
An insulin test may prevent diet frustration, new research suggests.
May 15, 2007 — -- Many hopeful dieters find themselves frustrated when the diet that let their friend drop 50 pounds leaves them at the same weight.
A prominent diet researcher takes aim at this frustration with a new study, which he says is a major step towards personalized dieting.
Others say he does not have the numbers to back up his idea.
David Ludwig, director of the Obesity Program at Children's Hospital in Boston, and his colleagues monitored the weight loss of 73 young adults over the course of 18 months to see if they would do better on a low-fat diet or what is known as a low-glycemic load diet.
The results are published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
While dieters did about equally well on both diets, those who produce a lot of insulin after eating did markedly better on the low-glycemic load diet, losing, on average, 5 percent of their body weight versus the 1 percent lost by those on the low-fat diet.
Ludwig says these findings challenge the one-diet-fits-all concept.
"The key question in the field of obesity is why some can do well on conventional weight loss diets and others do poorly on the same diets," he said.
Ludwig said that potential candidates for the low-glycemic diet will usually be "apple-shaped," with fat around their midsections, rather than "pear-shaped" people who tend to collect fat around their hips and thighs. A blood test for insulin levels can tell for sure.
By taking in fewer heavily processed carbohydrates, apple-shaped dieters can avoid their bodies' buildup of insulin to digest those foods -- a buildup that seems to drive weight gain, Ludwig said.
A low-glycemic load diet includes fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and whole grains, and discourages processed sugars and starches like white breads, white rice and potato products.
At the same time, it allows for dairy products, even full-fat ones, and urges people to look at the types of fats they consume (avoiding saturated fats) rather than restrict calorie intake.
"[The low-glycemic diet] is very similar to many traditional diets," said Ludwig, who endorses the low-glycemic load diet as a compromise between high-fat, low carbohydrate diets like Atkins and diets which promote carbohydrates while eliminating fats. "We believe that a low-glycemic diet serves as a perfect compromise," he said.
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