Popular diets are nutritious enough

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One fear people have about going on a diet for any length of time is that they may suffer from nutritional deficiencies. A study published this week is fairly reassuring, at least for people on several of the most popular diets.

The study, published by British researchers in the Nutrition Journal, found that most people on the popular diets Slim Fast, Atkins, Weight Watchers and Rosemary Conley’s ‘Eat Yourself Slim’ diet (a low-fat diet popular in the United Kingdom) typically get enough nutrients. There are some exceptions and some interesting observations, however:

• Despite the fact that all of the diets except the Atkins diet advise people to eat more fruits and vegetables, only the dieters in the Weight Watchers one actually did so, and they only added one more portion a day.
• People on the Atkins diet had lower intake of dietary fiber.
• People on the Atkins diet had no significant changes in their absolute intake of fat per day or in the quantity of saturated fat consumed. The amount of saturated fat intake fell significantly in the other groups.
• Atkins dieters had declines in folate, magnesium, calcium, iron and potassium. There was an increase in selenium.
• Weight Watchers dieters had declines in riboflavin, niacin, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc.
• Slimfast dieters had declines in niacin and a rise in zinc.
• Rosemary Conley dieters had declines in magnesium, potassium and zinc.

The two-month study found that all the diets resulted in a significant drop in body weight compared with non-dieters in a control group, but there was no real difference between the diets in the amount of weight lost.

-- Shari Roan