No, Atkins didn't win in this series. All of them came out about equal.

What these trials really showed was that you could lose weight in one of two ways -- either by cutting calories or "starving" as it is more correctly called (another term for it is "malnutrition"), or by eating as much as you like. I know which one I prefer and I know (after 41 years I ought to) which is the easier one to live on. That's all they showed.

I will suggest that they do a follow up in a year. The real test is how many on each diet have put weight back on.

I spoke to Dr Helen Truby, the lead scientist on Diet Trials, this morning about the raw data from diet trials. I also asked when and where their results would be published.

She told me that nothing was available at present, as they had not yet been analysed and written up. She expected that the results would be published in about a year from now and that their preferred journal is the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. I will look out for it.

Unfortunately, by then, the public will have forgotten all about it!

Incidentally, the journal Nutrition Research has just published a study of over 35,000 women who eat either a low-fat diet (LF) or a high-fat diet (HF). The figures are interesting:

LF HF
Calorie intake -- 1829 2952
BMI -- 24.5 24.2

Although this difference in BMI (body mass index) is not great, it was statistically significant. People who eat more fat have lower body weights. The researchers say "Fat intake decreased with increasing BMI".