In other words: neither group lost more weight than the other, at any time point.

That's not the point, however--again, nobody argues that you can't cause people to lose weight by severely restricting their caloric intake. As study after study has shown, however, caloric restriction diets do not work in the long term. People just can't maintain semi-starvation diets indefinitely.

Furthermore, quoting the abstract: "After 3 months, participants in the low-carbohydrate diet group increased their carbohydrate intake (5 g/d per wk) until a stable and desired weight was achieved."

In other words, it is entirely expected that both groups had similar levels of weight loss, since the researchers explicitly took steps to ensure that this would be the case. The same presumably goes for the calorie-restricted group, since their calorie levels are given as 1200-1800 kcal/day--quite a wide range, indicating that the researchers adjusted caloric intake to achieve the desired levels of weight loss.

I would be interested to know what the relative attrition was between the two groups; the abstract does not include this information, and I don't feel like paying $15 for the full paper.

Your four new cites do not change the fact that of the OP's five cites, one argued against his position and four were irrelevant. Addressing yours, however...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15148064

"Participants on a low-carbohydrate diet had more favorable overall outcomes at 1 year than did those on a conventional diet."

A conventional diet is not carbohydrate restricted. Irrelevant citation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16476868

Compares carbohydrate-restricted, calorie-unrestricted diet with fat-restricted, calorie-restricted diet. Finds that you lose as much weight eating as much as you want on a carbohydrate-restricted diet as you do starving yourself on a fat-restricted diet.

States that total cholesterol changed more favorably on a low-fat diet, which is strange, since total cholesterol is a lousy measure of anything. High HDL ("good cholesterol") levels are good, while high triglyceride levels are bad--what value can there possibly be in adding the two together?

States that LDL levels were "more favorable" in the low-fat contingent, but LDL is not a monolithic substance. Small, dense LDL is bad; large, less dense LDL is either good or not bad depending on who you talk to. High-fat diets are known to raise large LDL levels, so an increase in overall LDL in the carbohydrate-restricted group is entirely expected.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12684364

Meta-analysis. States that in published studies involving diets restricting carbohydrate intake to less than 90 g/day (~360 calories/day), there was no correlation between amount of carbohydrate intake and weight loss. In other words, their analysis indicates that once carbohydrate intake has been restricted to a certain level, further restriction may have no impact on weight loss.

They did not compare carbohydrate restricted diets with any other form of diet, and therefore cannot draw any conclusions regarding the relative effectiveness of carbohydrate restriction and any other diet.

Their analysis also reveals the lack of published research performed on carbohydrate-restricted diets over the past few decades. This fact is also unsurprising to anyone who has read GCBC.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17507345

The abstract does not indicate to what degree, if any, caloric restriction was used.

Compares a "low glycemic load" diet with a low fat diet; does not examine carbohydrate restriction. Note that the low glycemic load contingent was still receiving 40% of calories from carbohydrates.

This study also appears to have examined LDL without regard to LDL composition (small/dense vs. large/less-dense).

Confused?

No, not really.

My understanding is that a carbohydrate-restricted diet:

- Will promote weight loss without hunger.
- Will increase HDL levels (good cholesterol).
- Will decrease triglyceride levels (very, very bad stuff).
- Will increase LDL levels. LDL is "bad cholesterol", BUT...
- ...small LDL is correlated with CHD, and is not increased by a carbohydrate-restricted diet, AND...
- ...LDL in general is much less important than HDL and triglyceride levels as a risk factor for CHD.

Both your citations and those of the OP have either been irrelevant to these points or have supported them.