Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine disease in women affecting 5-10% of those of childbearing age. The majority of women with PCOS, regardless of weight, have a form of insulin resistance that is intrinsic to the syndrome. Obese women with PCOS have an added burden of insulin resistance related to their adiposity. Given the association of obesity and insuli...

Controversy exists about the optimal amount and source of dietary carbohydrate for managing insulin resistance. Therefore, we compared the effects on insulin sensitivity (SI), pancreatic responsivity (AIRglu) and glucose disposition index of dietary advice aimed at reducing the amount or altering the source of dietary carbohydrate in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT). Subjects were...

to the editor: The studies by Samaha et al. 1 and Foster et al. 2 (May 22 issue) are intended to expand our knowledge about low-carbohydrate diets. One potential long-term concern about the low-carbohydrate diet is its relatively high protein load and the effect this has on kidneys. This issue is especially important in persons with diabetes, who are more likely than others to have an underlyin...

BACKGROUND Despite the popularity of the low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat (Atkins) diet, no randomized, controlled trials have evaluated its efficacy. METHODS We conducted a one-year, multicenter, controlled trial involving 63 obese men and women who were randomly assigned to either a low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diet or a low-calorie, high-carbohydrate, low-fat (conventio...

Dumesnil et al. (2001) reported the results of a study from Laval University, Québec, in which overweight men were fed under metabolic ward conditions for 6 d on each of three different test diets. They concluded that: ‘. . . a lowglycaemic index–low-fat–high-protein diet can produce a marked decrease in ad libitum energy intake without increasing hunger or decreasing satiety while having rapid...

OBJECTIVE Low-fat hypocaloric diets reduce insulin resistance and prevent type 2 diabetes in those at risk. Low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets are advocated as an alternative, but reciprocal increases in dietary fat may have detrimental effects on insulin resistance and offset the benefits of weight reduction. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We investigated a low-fat (20% fat, 60% carbohydrate) ver...

Low-carbohydrate diets for weight loss are receiving a lot of attention of late. Reasons for this interest include a plethora of low-carbohydrate diet books, the over-sensationalism of these diets in the media and by celebrities, and the promotion of these diets in fitness centres and health clubs. The re-emergence of low-carbohydrate diets into the spotlight has lead many people in the general...

Recently, diets low in carbohydrate content have become a matter of international attention because of the WHO recommendations to reduce the overall consumption of sugars and rapidly digestible starches. One of the common metabolic changes assumed to take place when a person follows a low-carbohydrate diet is ketosis. Low-carbohydrate intakes result in a reduction of the circulating insulin lev...