Low-fat diet largely pointless: new studyPublished: Thursday, 9
February, 2006, 10:16 AM Doha Time
WASHINGTON: It turns out that all the suffering and privation could
have been in vain.
A major new health study released here yesterday showed that older
women, who have forsworn juicy steaks in favour of lettuce leaves in
hopes of avoiding cancer, heart disease or stroke, have precious little
to show for their sacrifice.
"Just switching to low-fat foods is not likely to yield much health
benefit in most women," said Marcia Stefanick, professor of medicine
at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, who participated in the
study being published in the February 8 issue of the Journal of the
American Medical Association.
The iconoclastic report, which appears to debunk most popular dieting
theories, says following an eating pattern lower in total fat did not
significantly reduce the incidence of breast cancer, heart disease or
stroke - and did not lower the risk of colorectal cancer in healthy
postmenopausal women.
True, the 48,835 women aged 50-79, who reduced their total fat intake,
had a 9% lower risk of breast cancer than did women who made no dietary
changes, scientists said.
But the difference was not large enough to be statistically
significant, which means it could have been due to chance, concluded
the researchers, whose work on the subject spanned an eight-year period
in the 1990s.
For instance, in a group of 10,000 women, 42 in the low-fat diet group
developed breast cancer each year, compared with 45 in the group
maintaining their regular eating patterns.
Women in both groups started at 35-38% of calories from fat, but then
their paths diverged. By the end of the first year, the low-fat diet
group reduced average total fat intakes to 24% of calories from fat,
but did not meet the studys goal of 20%.
At year six, the low-fat dieters were consuming 29% of calories from
fat and increased their consumption of vegetables, fruits and grains.
The comparison group averaged 35% of calories from fat at year one and
37% at year six. - AFP
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TC