What happens when you run a year-long trial pitting low-carb diets versus low-fat diets? The media erupts, of course. In the case of a recent study coming out of Johns Hopkins and Tulane Universities, which showed that low-carb diets performed better in just about every possible metric, the media frenzy was almost palpable.
But did the study actually show what headlines conveyed? Headlines normally don’t tell the full story, even on our website, so it’s important to look at what these trials are actually telling us—and that, at times, involves hours of reading and research. Most of us don’t have the time to do that, but luckily there are experts who can break down the facts for us. And that’s exactly what we’ve done here.
Kamal Patel is the cofounder of Examine.com, one of the Internet’s largest resources of nutrition research. He’s been writing about nutrition for more than 20 years, so he knows more about the subject than the Instagram influencers giving their hot take on this study or the journalists taking a stab at dissecting it.