Calorie-counting key to weight loss
A new study has revealed that simple calorie-counting is the key to weight-loss and not changing the amount of protein one consumes.Researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana analysed the effect that protein levels in diet had on a group of 25 people.
The participants were divided into three groups and given a daily diet which consisted of the same amount of carbohydrate and either six per cent, 15 per cent or 26 per cent protein.
During the final weeks of the study, the groups were overfed to see whether the amount of protein had an effect on excess calories when it came to weight gain.
All partisans put on weight, with those who had been eating the lowest amounts of protein gaining the least number of pounds. However, this group also lost mean muscle mass and stored a higher percentage of calories as fat.
Dr George Bray, who led the study, explained in the Journal of the American Medical Association: "The hypothesis was that the low-protein and high-protein diets might affect fat gain, but they didn't.
"Fat gain isn't modulated to any significant degree by protein intake."
The results of the study were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
