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Low-Fat Diet Associated with Improved Mood After 1 Year
Patients may ask about a small study suggesting that a low-fat diet, compared with a low-carbohydrate one, is associated with improved mood despite similar weight loss.
Reporting in Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers describe randomizing some 100 obese adults to either a low-carb or low-fat diet. After 1 year, participants lost an average of 14 kg, with no significant weight-loss difference between the diets.
Both groups saw initial improvements in mood scores as assessed by questionnaires. But by 1 year, the low-carb group saw its scores return to unfavorable baseline levels, while the low-fat group had sustained improvements in depression, anger, and confusion.
The authors note that average mood scores throughout the study were within the normal range, so their findings "are limited to healthy, obese, young to middle-aged adults with normal mood state and cannot be generalized to clinical populations."
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Archives of Internal Medicine article (Free)
Published in Physician's First Watch November 10, 2009
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