Fette oder kohlenhydrate in der adipositastherapie?

Obesity is an increasing problem in the industrialized countries. Besides genetic predisposition from the environment increasing abundance of refined food and insufficient physical activity are the most important causal factors. There is much debate on the importance of fat and carbohydrate intake in the therapy of obesity. Presuming isoenergetic diets carbohydrates and fat calories are used with the same efficiency to cover the energy needs. With high fat, energy dense ad libitum diets more calories are passively ingested then with high carbohydrate diets since people tend to consume a similar bulk of food regardless of its composition. The Atkins diet claims to be effective at producing weight loss despite ad libitum consumption of high fat food. Even if high fat diets produce higher weight losses over three to six months, the 12 months studies indicate that the high fat diets may be no better in the longer term. By contrast, moderate-fat diets have been shown to promote moderate weight loss over more than one year and to reduce the risk of diabetes and propably also of coronary heart disease and certain cancers.