ReviewCurrent obesity reports2021
Benefits of Low Carbohydrate Diets: a Settled Question or Still Controversial?
Review in Current obesity reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of low-carbohydrate diets for long-term weight loss in obese individuals: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2022Pooled it
- Effects of low-carbohydrate time-restricted eating, with or without sprint interval training, on resting cardiac biomarkers in young adults: a sex-stratified randomized controlled trial.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Trial
- Effect of low-carbohydrate vs low-fat diet intervention on visceral fat estimated from dual energy X-ray absorptiometry in a 12-month randomized controlled trial.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2026Trial
- Exploring Biases of the Healthy Eating Index and Alternative Healthy Eating Index When Scoring Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets.Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics · 2024Trial
- Association of dietary adherence and dietary quality with weight loss success among those following low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets: a secondary analysis of the DIETFITS randomized clinical trial.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2024Trial
- Effect of a ketogenic diet versus Mediterranean diet on glycated hemoglobin in individuals with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus: The interventional Keto-Med randomized crossover trial.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2022Trial
- Diet in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: Efficacy, Tolerability, and Microbiome Effects Toward Personalized Management.Digestive diseases and sciences · 2026Review
- Edible Potential ofFood science & nutrition · 2026Article
- Efficacy and safety of lower-carbohydrate dietary patterns for metabolic associated fatty liver disease: evidence from randomized controlled trials with grade analysis.Nutrition & metabolism · 2026Article
- Therapeutic nutrition strategies for the shared pathophysiology of obesity and sleep-disordered breathings.Nutrition journal · 2025Review
- Effect of Low-Carbohydrate Diets on C-Reactive Protein Level in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Food science & nutrition · 2025Review
- Impact of nurse-led intervention on weight reduction in an urban Indian community: an exploratory sequential mixed-method study.BMJ nutrition, prevention & health · 2025Article
- Too old for healthy aging? Exploring age limits of longevity treatments.npj metabolic health and disease · 2024Review
- Clinical Evidence of Low-Carbohydrate Diets against Obesity and Diabetes Mellitus.Metabolites · 2023Review
- Weight, insulin resistance, blood lipids, and diet quality changes associated with ketogenic and ultra low-fat dietary patterns: a secondary analysis of the DIETFITS randomized clinical trial.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
- A bibliometric and visual analysis of low carbohydrate diet.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purpose of reviewThe purpose of this review was to provide an update on the available data on the benefits of low-carbohydrate (low-carb) diets for weight management and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and determine if low-carb diets were a settled question or still controversial. RECENT
findingsMost of the recent published literature in this area consists of reviews of past trials, with a relatively smaller number of recent trials. Low-carb is most commonly compared to low-fat, with problematically inconsistent definitions of both. There are numerous challenges in trying to draw clear conclusions about efficacy and effectiveness. Short-term vs. long-term effects can differ, which is likely impacted by adherence. Adherence is very different between metabolic chamber or feeding studies vs. free-living. Body weight alone is a crude measure that fails to capture potentially important differences in lean-mass, fat-mass, and body water. Benefits for glycemic control need to be balanced with impacts on non-glycemic outcomes such as LDL-cholesterol, the microbiome, and inflammation. It is important to differentiate between low-carb and very-low carbohydrate diets (VLCD). To date no large-scale long-term clinical trials have been conducted testing whether low-carb diets can prevent T2DM. Many issues regarding benefits and risks of low-carb diets remain controversial or unresolved, particularly for VLCD. Some of the recent, better studies highlighted in this review suggest strategies for resolving these controversies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.