Research Shows That A High Protein Diet Can Help You Lose Weight

Nutritional research sheds light on why a protein rich diet can help you lose weight

As nutrition experts debate the ideal combination of carbohydrates, protein and fat that people should eat, latest research explains for the first time how and why a moderately high protein diet may be the best for losing weight.

The new study indicates that eating more high quality protein will increase the amount of leucine, an amino acid, in the diet, helping a person maintain muscle mass and reduce body fat during weight loss. Maintaining muscle during weight loss efforts is essential because it helps the body burn more calories.

 The findings of two papers involving diets of increased protein and reduced carbohydrates appear in the February issue of the Journal of Nutrition. The research was led by Donald K. Layman a professor of nutrition in the department of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois.

Layman, also a professor in the College of Medicine, tested his hypothesis on 24 mid-life, overweight women who consumed diets of 1,700 calories a day for 10 weeks. Physical activity of the participants was held constant.

Study group participants increased the amount of protein they ate daily to about 0.73 grams per pound of body weight and reduced their intake of carbohydrates to 0.95 grams per pound of body weight.

The control group ate according to the USDA Food Guide Pyramid, consuming approximately 0.36 grams of protein and 1.3 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight per day.

They also built their diets around high quality proteins, which provided the optimal level of leucine to improve body composition. Leucine has been shown to be a regulator of muscle, which is important to maintain when losing weight.

While the body makes many other amino acids, it does not produce leucine, so people need to consume foods that contain it. Leucine is found primarily in high quality protein foods such as beef, dairy products, poultry, fish and eggs.

Layman also cautions that it would be a mistake to think about dietary protein as a percent of calories. “What is important about my plan,” he said, “is that protein needs are based on body weight and not on a percent of the calories consumed.”

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