Re: Low-carb and Mediterranean diets better than low-fat diet for weight loss

Matti Narkia wrote:
Ron Peterson wrote:

On Jul 18, 6:13 am, Matti Narkia <m...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

As for omega-6 fatty acids, we get them so much from various foods,
most often too much, so that it would be very difficult, almost
impossible, to construct a palatatable diet, which would have too
low omega-6 content.

http://www.commonvoice.com/article.asp?colid=5978 shows that butter
and beef tallow are extremely low in omega 6 (and omega 3) fatty
acids.

What that has to do with this study and your assumption? You were
guessing that "The Mediterranean diet and the low-fat diet seemed
to be low in omega3 and omega 6 fatty acids". The Mediterranean diet
and the low-fat diet by definition don't use much butter or beef
tallow, usually not any.

> In the study, the Mediterranean diet used olive oil instead of
the canola oil which was used in the original Mediterranean diet
study. (Olive oil is low in both omega 6 and omega 3 fatty acids).

Olive oil is an integral part of Mediterranean diet. The diet
which does not use olive oil is not a Mediterranean diet. In
the Cretan traditional Mediterranean diet omega-3s were obtained
from wild herbs and walnuts (alpha-linolenic acid), and from fish
(EPA and DHA). If wild herbs and/or walnuts have not been used in
some Mediterranean diet studies, alpha-linolenic acid has been
obtained from other sources, for example canola oil, which then
have been used _in addition_ to the olive oil. I have not any
reason to suspect that fish was not made available in the
Mediterranean diet group of this study, and because the
Mediterranean diet in this study was based on the recommendations
of Harvard's Walter C Willett and Patrick J Skerrett, I'm fairly
confident that alpha-linolenic acid was also made available,
perhaps in the form a few walnuts daily.

Olive oil contains over 10% of omega-6 linoleic acid
(<http://www.fineli.fi/food.php?foodid=536&lang=en>), and both
low-fat diet and Mediterranean diet typically contain so much
vegetables, many of which are good sources of omega-6s, that
there cannot have been any shortage of omega-6s in these diets.

An excerpt fro the study text:

"Mediterranean Diet

The moderate-fat, restricted-calorie, Mediterranean diet was
rich in vegetables and low in red meat, with poultry and fish
replacing beef and lamb. We restricted energy intake to 1500
kcal per day for women and 1800 kcal per day for men, with a
goal of no more than 35% of calories from fat; the main sources
of added fat were 30 to 45 g of olive oil and a handful of
nuts (five to seven nuts, <20 g) per day. The diet is based on
the recommendations of Willett and Skerrett."

So fish was used and therefore the source of omega-3 EPA and
DHA was available. Nuts were also used, although the type of the
nuts is not specified in this excerpt. Nuts are very fatty and
good sources of unsaturated fats including omega-6s. From olive
oil alone the participants of the Mediterranean diet group got
3.1 - 4.7 g omega-6s per day. Clearly there cannot have been any
shortage of omega-6s in this group.


--
Matti Narkia

http://ma.gnolia.com/groups/Nutrition
.

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