Low-carb diet burns more fat: study | Northern Rivers Health | Fitness and Medical News in Northern Rivers

Danny Rose | 22nd January 2009

IT'S official, a low-carb diet is better at burning fat than just cutting calories.

Scientists who were working to find out how diet affects the operation of the liver put 14 overweight people on either a low carbohydrate or low calorie diet.

They found those eating fewer carbs lost almost double the weight over two weeks, and several changes in liver function were identified as part of the reason why.

"Energy production is expensive for the liver," says Dr Jeffrey Browning, assistant professor at the UT Southwestern Medical Centre, in Dallas, Texas.

"It appears that for the people on a low-carbohydrate diet, in order to meet that expense, their livers have to burn excess fat."

The average weight loss for the low-calorie dieters was about 2.2kg, while the low-carb dieters lost about 4.3kg on average.

Dr Browning said the study highlighted how diet could cause a "dramatic change" in where and how the liver was producing glucose - a form of sugar.

Glucose and fat are both sources of energy that are metabolised in the liver and used as energy in the body.

Test subjects on the low-calorie diets got about 40 per cent of their glucose from a substance called "glycogen" - which is made from ingested carbohydrates stored in the liver until needed.

Those on low-carb diets, however, sourced only 20 per cent of their glucose from glycogen as they burned more fat instead of dipping into their reserves.

Dr Browning said the findings offered new hope for targeted non drug-related treatments for obesity and also liver-related disorders such as diabetes, insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

"Instead of looking at drugs to combat obesity and the diseases that stem from it, maybe optimising diet can not only manage and treat these diseases, but also prevent them," says Dr Browning.

"Understanding how the liver makes glucose under different dietary conditions may help us better regulate metabolic disorders with diet."

The findings are published in the journal Hepatology.

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