Moderately obese people who ate the Mediterranean diet lost more
weight than groups of people who followed either a low-fat or a
low-carbohydrate diet, researchers reported. The Mediterranean
group weighed almost seven pounds less than they weighed six
years earlier. In the low-carb group, the total was 3.7 pounds,
and the low-fat group was 1.3 pounds. The Mediterranean diet is
one based on the eating habits of people who live in that part
of the world — high in produce, and including olive oil and
fish. The researchers, in a letter published Wednesday in the
New England Journal of Medicine, collected data from a two-year
work-based program called the Dietary Intervention Randomized
Controlled Trial. They randomly assigned 322 moderately obese
people, most of them men, to the three diet categories. The
participants were given education assistance about the diets.
After two years, the average weight loss was 6.4 pounds in the
low-fat group, almost 10 pounds in the Mediterranean group and
10.3 in the low-carb g