Dine & Cook | Alternative food journalism

New research out from Temple University and the National Institutes of Health reinforces the theory that a low-carb diet lowers your risk for weight gain and cardiovascular problems.

The study from the Temple University Center for Obesity Research and Education and funded by the NIH was published this week in the "Annals of Internal Medicine."

The two-year, federally funded Temple University study focused on 307 adults, of whom two-thirds were women. Half of the participants followed the Induction phase of the Atkins Diet for three months before increasing their carbohydrate intake by five grams a week until they reached a stable weight. The other participants followed a low-fat diet, consisting of 1,200-1,800 daily calories of which less than 30 percent was fat.

Results showed that while both the low-fat and low-carb diets promote successful weight loss, the Atkins Diet increased the body's levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol by 23 percent -- nearly twice as much as a low-fat diet, which increased HDL levels by only 12 percent. Many other studies of up to one year's duration have reported similar beneficial results, but this is the second two-year study.

"Had participants in the Temple University study known how to find their own carbohydrate threshold -- instead of continuing to add carbohydrates until weight loss ceased -- they would have almost certainly lost more weight and shown even higher HDL cholesterol levels," said Dr. Eric C. Westman, a coauthor of "The New Atkins for a New You."

Researchers used the guidelines of the 2002 Atkins Diet as a model in their testing.