USDA on diets

[Cecilia Wilkinson Enns]

>From Associated Press:

                                                                               
Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2001 

USDA: Most Popular Diets Flawed  

WASHINGTON (AP) - Most popular diets help people drop pounds 
initially, but only traditional moderate-fat, high-carbohydrate 
regimens seem to keep dieters slim, according to the first major 
review of popular diets by the federal government.  

The Agriculture Department study found that any diet that limits 
food to about 1,500 calories per day produces short-term weight 
loss, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.  

But those diets do little to help a dieter lower cholesterol and blood 
pressure levels.  

The study is to be released publicly Thursday, the Post said. 
USDA spokesman Andy Solomon declined to comment Tuesday 
night.  

``This basically tells you that you can lose weight on any of the 
diets, if you keep your calories down,'' Agriculture Secretary Dan 
Glickman told the Post. ``The trick is how you maintain that weight 
loss.''  

The report, the first in an ongoing review of popular diets, casts 
doubt on newer, unorthodox approaches.  

Those programs that have put more demands on dieters - like 
those recommended by groups such as the American Heart 
Association and Weight Watchers - have the best scientific 
evidence to back up their success rates and health claims.  

They recommend consuming no more than 30 percent of calories 
as fat, limiting protein to about 20 percent of the diet and 
consuming more fruits, vegetables and complex carbohydrates to 
help satisfy hunger with fewer calories.  

They are the most nutritionally adequate and showed some of the 
best improvements in blood levels of the most dangerous 
cholesterol and blood fats and in blood sugar control, the study 
found.  

``Based on the scientific knowledge we have, this seems to be the 
most efficacious way to go and it is most likely the safest,'' the 
Post quoted Xavier Pi-Sunyer, director of the obesity research 
center at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York and editor of 
Obesity Research, which will publish the full USDA study in the 
March-April issue.  

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Cecilia Wilkinson Enns
USDA/ARS/BA/BHNRC/Food Surveys Research Group
BARC-West, Bldg. 005, Room 102
10300 Baltimore Ave.
Beltsville, MD 20705-2350
E-mail: cenns at rbhnrc.usda.gov