“Factcheck: Do Low-Carb Diets Really Help You Lose Belly Fat or Is Exercise the Key? A Hong Kong Study Investigates the Most Effective Method to Localize Weight Loss”

2023-04-27 15:07:12

In the news

To lose weight locally, the most peculiar nutritional recommendations circulate on social media. For example, low-carbohydrate slimming diets, such as the ketogenic diet, would ensure a rapid loss of body fat on the abdomen without feeling hungry. The bottom line is that you should not eat bread, rice and pasta, because they would make your belly fatter. Is that right?

Factcheck

Losing weight locally, getting rid of a belly, works better with exercise than with any diet. A combination of both methods will probably give the best results, but that was not investigated here. The study does not show that your belly melts away with low-carb diets.

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Where does this news come from?

Vet settles down two places: under the skin or between the abdominal organs.

• The fat that accumulates between the abdominal organswe call visceral knows.
• Compared to subcutaneous fat, visceral fat is worse for health.
• Belly fat comes on men more common than in women.
  • In women, fat goes more on the Hips to sit.

The Happy Healthy website claims that a low-carb weight loss diet helps break down fat on the belly (1). In addition you would:

• omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids have to swallow;
• mainly protein have to eat;
• no alcohol allowed to drink.

A scientific research team from Hong Kong investigated which method was most efficient lose belly fat (2).

• The researchers compared the results of diets with more move.
• They investigated 40 existing studies die:
  • the effects of move compared met diets;
  • the impact of it belly fat followed with scans.
• The studies showed that local slimming and getting rid of a tummy much better with movement than by restricting calories.
• So you can do it with diets alone not local slimming.

Bron

(1) 9 Tips to Burn Visceral Fat + Value Table (happyhealthy.nl). Accessed Tuesday, April 25, 2023.

How should you interpret this news?

With this study from Hong Kong, there are a number of them difficulties.

• Of interventions were total different.
  • Nature, duration and intensity of exercise differed, as did the diets.
  • You then compare apples with oranges, which makes drawing conclusions difficult.
• There were also proportionate more studies on the effect of exerciseand less about diets.
• Most studies that compared exercise to diets were of short term.
  • As a result, the long-term effects term unclear.

You will probably get the best results with one combination of exercise and diet.

• If you only move more, you risk afterwards more to eatso you don’t lose weight.

Conclusion

Losing weight locally, getting rid of a belly, works better with exercise than with any diet. A combination of both methods will probably give the best results, but that was not investigated here. The study does not show that your belly melts away with low-carb diets.

References

(2) Recchia F, Leung CK, Yu AP, et al. Dose-response effects of exercise and caloric restriction on visceral adiposity in overweight and obese adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Br J Sports Med. 2023 Jan 20:bjsports-2022-106304.