Research
Hormonal
A carbohydrate-restricted diet reduces triglyceride levels more effectively than a low-fat diet in severely obese subjects, particularly in those who lose more than 5% of their baseline weight.
If you are severely obese, a low-carb diet (≤30g/day) will lower your triglycerides much more than a low-fat diet, but this benefit is most pronounced if you actually lose more than 5% of your body weight. Simply restricting carbs without losing weight may not yield the same triglyceride benefits.
ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
Comparison of subjects within weight-loss strata demonstrated that this finding was limited to subjects who lost more than 5 percent of their base-line weight.
Why this rating
RCT design, but the benefit is conditional on achieving a threshold of weight loss.
Source
A Low-Carbohydrate as Compared with a Low-Fat Diet in Severe Obesity
Frederick F. Samaha et al. · New England Journal of Medicine · 2003
DOI 10.1056/nejmoa022637
rct · n=132Cited 1,269×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- A carbohydrate-restricted diet (≤30g carbs/day) produces greater weight loss and greater improvements in triglyceride levels and insulin sensitivity compared to a calorie- and fat-restricted diet in severely obese subjects over six months.Moderate
- In severely obese subjects, a carbohydrate-restricted diet improves insulin sensitivity independently of the amount of weight lost, compared to a low-fat diet.Moderate
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