isocaloric study, low carb vs low fat diets, conclusions are biased page

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Nutrition & Metabolism | Full text | Comparison of isocaloric very low carbohydrate/high saturated fat and high carbohydrate/low saturated fat diets on body composition and cardiovascular risk

Check out this study, do the math from the results, draw your own conclusion, then compare it to their conclusion.

Here's what I've got:
On average, the low carb group lost an extra 12.5% when compared to the total amount of fat lost in the low fat group. They say that's the same thing and it isn't significant. I'm calling bullshit. Add that up over time and you end up with a good handful of kg extra lost over a years worth of time. I call that significant.

This is the problem with relying on studies. People are often too lazy to actually read them for themselves and draw their own conclusions. Authors often site studies with clearly biased conclusions, knowing that there will be plenty of readers who will assume their honesty because they sited the studies.

You want to know who did this? Arthur Jones. He sited several studies saying that there isn't a significant difference in strength and muscle gain with one set vs multiple sets. When I did the math, I concluded a significance. YES, there is little difference in the short term such as a few weeks, but with hard work over time, those extra sets give you a small benefit over time that eventually can add up to something significant such as world records. Duh!!! But I guess if it worked quite well to help his needs, to make a ton of money filling gyms with nautilus equipment.

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Then if you look up other studies, you have a lot of people trying to disprove that low carb diets work. So they site all the studies that conclude "no significant difference" in fat lost. But if you look it up yourself, you see that there is a difference.

I've checked out at least one other similar study that shows more fat loss with low carbs and more muscle retained with higher protein.

I positively understand the point of noting similarities in fat loss. What I gather from it is that with all else being equal, you still have to account for calories. If you aren't losing weight, drop calories and the fat will come off.

But aside from that, there still is a "slight" advantage of fat loss with the low carb diet vs low fat. It doesn't appear that you'll be able to get away with eating a lot more calories and get the same results. No! But if fat loss is the main goal, over time (with equal calories) the low carb diet will eventually show a better advantage.

Also, with the high protein, at this point I'm convinced that sufficient protein is helpful for muscle retention. But I'd have to look at more studies to see how much. I highly doubt you need a ridiculous amount such as that which a bodybuilder typically recommends.

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Do you understand what the term "significant difference" means? It is a statistical term with a specific meaning

Also, one cites articles, rather than siting them

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Also, with the high protein, at this point I'm convinced that sufficient protein is helpful for muscle retention. But I'd have to look at more studies to see how much. I highly doubt you need a ridiculous amount such as that which a bodybuilder typically recommends.

Maybe so, but there are other benefits from a high protein intake than mucle retention as well. There are studies that indicates clearly that protein is the macro nutrient that gives the highes score of satiety per calorie, much higher than fat as many people believes here on this board. There are other benefits as well, so protein is still the most important macro nutrient as already recognized by the greeks 2400 years ago. It is much better to overshoot a little on proteins, especially when calories and carbs are low, and I am not only thinking about muscle retention here...

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The study's authors were 100% right to say it wasn't significant. It wasn't in the context of the study they were investigating which was short-term. And yes, for nutritional studies, eight weeks is pretty short-term.

Over the long term,the difference would become more apparently significant, however, the study's authors were under no obligation to mention this. They reported only the results they saw and were correct.

The issue here isn't what they reported but the simple fact that without longer-term studies, no statistically significant differences in fat loss between low carb and high carb diets will result. And it's easy enough to realize that if you have any sort of bent AGAINST low carb diets, then you could simply prove this over and over again by developing only short-range studies to test this and keep having the same results over and over again.

However, someone will eventually realize this and be smart and scientific enough to realize a long-term study needs to be done. The winds will change, humans are always learning and evolving. Science will eventually catch up if the evidence bears it out. Give it time.