Healthy Fats in Mediterranean Diet Won't Cause Weight Gain

You don’t have to fear that if you decided to follow an eating plan that also includes healthy fats like nuts and olive oil will cause you to gain unwanted weight.

A new study delivers good news to people who prefer the Mediterranean diet – which does include healthful fats – and not a diet that’s low in fat. The study authors suggest that the unnecessary fear of these healthy fats may be caused by current health guidelines.

“More than 40 years of nutritional policy has advocated for a low-fat diet, but we’re seeing little impact on rising levels of obesity,” explained study author Dr. Ramon Estruch, a researcher at the University of Barcelona, Spain.

According to the study’s results, following a Mediterranean diet rich in vegetable fats had little to no effect on waist circumference and overall body weight compared to individuals who preferred a low-fat diet.

In recent years, the Mediterranean diet has made a comeback on an international level, making a name for itself as a diet with plenty of health benefits. It also includes healthy fats, such as fish, vegetable oils, and nuts.

However, Estruch pointed in a press release that “not all fats are created equal.” The study revealed nothing that would imply “unrestricted diets with high levels of unhealthy fats such as butter, processed meat, sweetened beverages, desserts or fast-foods are beneficial.”

For the study, more than 7,400 women and men in Spain participated; the subjects were aged 55 to 80. They were asked to follow one of three eating plans: an unrestricted-calorie Mediterranean diet rich in nuts; an unrestricted-calorie Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil; or a low-fat diet meant to avoid any type of dietary fat.

More than 90 percent of the participants were overweight or obese and all of them had Type-2 diabetes or high heart risk. After five years, total fat intake dropped from 40 percent to 37 percent in the group following the low-fat diet, and increased in both Mediterranean diet groups, from 40 percent to 42 percent.

In all three groups, waist circumference did increase slightly, though it did less so in the participants on the healthy fat diets. The report’s results were featured in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
Image Source: Medical News Today

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When I was younger I used to spend almost all of my free time playing computer games. My mom and dad would go mental over this. “You’re never going to do anything with your life if you are going to play games all day” they used to say. What was even more unusual was the fact that I played more games than most of the guys in my friend group. Looking back, I have to admit that I probably played a bit too much, but I also learned a lot of great things. When I turned 20 I decided that it was high-time to make some money of my own, but the only jobs I could get were that of waitress or cashier. How exciting. After several excruciating months of serving tables I had a great idea: since I love gaming so much, why don’t I write about it? That’s when I started doing small writing projects on Elance. Eventually, I got an offer for a part-time job. During that time I learned all about content marketing strategies and how search engines work. I started writing about various topics such as technology, health and lifestyle and discovered that I was actually good at it. On November 24, 2014, I became part of the ArgyllFreePress team.