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Reduction in Abdominal Obesity with Higher Protein, Lower
Carbohydrate Diet
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1 July 2005
The researchers conducted a cross-sectional study among 617
Canadians of Aboriginal, South Asian, Chinese, and
European origins, using diet questionnaires and waist-hip ratio
(WHR
)
as the measure of abdominal obesity. The subjects were divided
into tertiles (3 equal groups), according to WHR. Those
with lowest WHR consumed an average of 17.4% of total dietary
energy from protein, and those with the highest WHR consumed an
average of 15.8% of total dietary energy from protein.
Substituting protein for carbohydrate in the diet was very
positively associated with a decrease in WHR. Smoking was also
associated with increased WHR, and increasing levels of physical
activity were associated with reduction in WHR. No link between
and total energy and proportion of fat in the diet was found.
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It is known that increasing abdominal obesity/WHR is an
important risk factor for the development of heart disease, Type
2 diabetes and other obesity-related ill health, but there are
few studies that have investigated how to reduce abdominal
obesity, irrespective of overall obesity (as measured by BMI).
These findings provide additional support for the potential
benefits of higher protein, lower carbohydrate diet, and also
corroborate previous research which finds increasing levels of
physical activity reduce abdominal obesity even without total
body weight loss.
These findings are published by Merchant et al (2005) J of Nut
135:1196-1201.
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