Most Popular Diets Flawed

WASHINGTON (AP) - Most popular diets help people drop pounds initially, but only traditional moderate-fat, high-carbohydrate regimens seem to keep dieters slim, according to the first major review of popular diets by the federal government.

The Agriculture Department study found that any diet that limits food to about 1,500 calories per day produces short-term weight loss, The Washington Post reported Friday.

But those diets do little to help a dieter lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels.

The study is to be released publicly Wednesday, the Post said. USDA spokesman Andy Solomon declined to comment Tuesday night.

"This basically tells you that you can lose weight on any of the diets, if you keep your calories down," Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman told the Post. "The trick is how you maintain that weight loss."

The report, the first in an ongoing review of popular diets, casts doubt on newer, unorthodox approaches.

Those programs that have put more demands on dieters - like those recommended by groups such as the American Heart Association and Weight Watchers - have the best scientific evidence to back up their success rates and health claims.

They recommend consuming no more than 30 percent of calories as fat, limiting protein to about 20 percent of the diet and consuming more fruits, vegetables and complex carbohydrates to help satisfy hunger with fewer calories.

They are the most nutritionally adequate and showed some of the best improvements in blood levels of the most dangerous cholesterol and blood fats and in blood sugar control, the study found.

"Based on the scientific knowledge we have, this seems to be the most efficacious way to go and it is most likely the safest," the Post quoted Xavier Pi-Sunyer, director of the obesity research center at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York and editor of Obesity Research, which will publish the full USDA study in the March-April issue.