Four of the most popular current weight loss diets produce at best only modest long-term benefits, a new study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes shows. The study also found few significant differences across the four diets, offering little hope that any one diet can produce a serious dent in the obesity epidemic.
Mark Eisenberg and colleagues systematically searched the literature for studies evaluating the effects of the Atkins, South Beach, Zone, and Weight Watchers diets. They identified 12 randomized, controlled studies with follow-up of at least 1 year. Ten studies compared one of the diets with usual care. In these trials, Weight Watchers was the only diet to consistently outperform usual care in achieving weight loss, but this difference was modest at best, yielding a 1-year weight loss range of 3.5 to 6 kg with Weight Watchers compared with 0.8 to 5.4 kg with usual care. In the two head-to-head trials, Atkins and Zone resulted in a similar but modest weight loss. Longer-term data out to 2 years — available only for the Weight Watchers and Atkins diets– showed that some of the original weight loss was regained over time. Only one small trial studied the South Beach diet.
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