Atkins Diet May Be Best for Women Trying to Lose Weight

For the past couple years, Americans have flocked to low-carb, high-protein diets such as the Atkins diet. It has been successful at taking off the weight, but some doctors have worried that the lack of carbohydrates and increase in protein and fat could cause high blood pressure and cholesterol readings.

A new study, however, appears to tell a different story. Compared to three other diets, the Atkins diet not only was most effective in the weight loss department, but also managed to avoid the heart and artery effects many physicians had predicted.

Performed by Stanford University researchers over the course of a year, the study included 311 overweight women, who were randomly assigned either the Atkins, Zone, LEARN, or Ornish diets. Each group of women was given a book on how to follow the diet. In addition, for the first two months of the study, the research participants also attended weekly one-hour sessions with a dietician.

At the end of the year-long study, those who had been on the Atkins diet managed to lose the most weight, an average of roughly 10 pounds. In each of the other three diets studied, the average weight loss was about six pounds.

Although not producing weight loss on par with what is presented on TV commercials or programs, the results were fairly well in line with what researchers expected. "This isn't a study testing how well you would do if you followed these diets to the letter," notes Christopher Gardner, lead author of the study. "This is a study that shows what happens if you bought the book and tried to follow the diets as most dieters do."

Bonnie Brehm, a professor of nutrition at the University of Cincinnati, agreed. She said the findings were "pretty much in line with what all the other studies have shown comparing Atkins and low-fat diets ... We have found the same thing with all our trials."

Others were not so quick to laud the study's results. "It's bad science, good publicity," said author Barry Sears, who came up with the Zone diet. He claimed the research "had a good concept and incredibly pathetic execution."