Research

Energy balance

A hypocaloric diet leads to statistically significant weight loss in adults with overweight or obesity regardless of whether the macronutrient composition is high-protein or high-carbohydrate.

To lose weight, you must create a caloric deficit. This study shows that whether you get those calories from protein or carbohydrates matters less than the total calorie reduction. A daily reduction of 500 kcal led to significant weight loss regardless of the macronutrient split. Choose the diet composition you can sustain best while maintaining this deficit.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Participants experienced a statistically significant weight loss across all dietary regimens (p < 0.001)... No significant differences in weight loss were observed between macronutrient groups
Maria Kafyra et al. · Nutrients · 2024

Why this rating

Randomized clinical trial with imputation for missing data, though high dropout rates (approx. 60%) and reliance on self-reported data for some metrics reduce robustness.

Source

A Dietary Intervention in Adults with Overweight or Obesity Leads to Weight Loss Irrespective of Macronutrient Composition

Maria Kafyra et al. · Nutrients · 2024

DOI 10.3390/nu16172842

rct · n=202Cited 5×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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