Although it is still widely feared that high fat diets could lead to weight gain, high fat Mediterranean style diets are actually a helpful tool for weight loss. Using data from the republished PREDIMED study (where adults at risk of heart disease were randomly assigned to a low fat diet, a Mediterranean diet with nuts, or a Mediterranean diet with olive oil for nearly 5 years), scientists analyzed the waist circumference and weight of the participants at baseline and again at the end of the study. While all 3,985 participants with follow up data increased their waist size slightly with aging – even as they lost weight – the Mediterranean diet groups had significantly smaller increases in their waistline compared to the low fat control group. Similarly, the Mediterranean diet with olive oil group lost significantly more weight than the low fat group, at nearly 1 pound more, but the greater weight loss seen in the nut group was not statistically significant. The scientists conclude that “the fear of weight gain from high-fat foods need no longer be an obstacle to adherence to a dietary pattern such as the Mediterranean diet,” and that these results “lend support to not restricting intake of healthy fats in advice for bodyweight maintenance and overall cardiometabolic health.”
The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology. 2019 May. [Epub ahead of print] (Estruch R et al.)