Thought this would be of interest. Link is at the bottom.

Article: New High Carb Diet Study Appears to be Junk Science and Atkins
Attack

Thursday, January 29, 2004
By Steven Milloy, Fox News
Already-confused dieters are no doubt reeling from reports this week of
a new study linking a high-carbohydrate diet (search) with weight loss.
Rather than well-conducted scientific research, though, the new study
appears to be merely a junk science-fueled attack by government nannies
on politically incorrect low-carbohydrate regimens like the Atkins Diet
(search).

"In the midst of the low-carb craze, a new study suggests that by eating
lots of carbohydrates and little fat, it is possible to lose weight
without actually cutting calories ¯ and without exercising, either,"
reported the Associated Press this week.
"Revenge of the High-Carb Diet ¯ Ha! It Works, Too" was the Reuters
headline.
But unlike the sensationalistic media, which tend to limit their
reporting of new study claims to regurgitated press releases and sound
bites from study authors, I actually read the study in the Jan. 26 issue
of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

It didn't take long to discover why study subjects on the
high-carbohydrate lost weight ¯ they ate fewer calories!
The researchers divided the 34 study subjects into three groups: a
control group of 12 individuals who consumed a low-carbohydrate diet
(search); a group of 11 individuals who consumed a high-carbohydrate
diet; and a group of 11 individuals who consumed a high-carbohydrate
diet and did aerobic exercise.

Study subjects were provided with foods constituting 150 percent of
their required daily caloric intake and instructed to eat as much as
they wanted. Carbohydrates constituted 45 percent of the control groups'
calories and about 62 percent for the high-carbohydrate groups.
After 12 weeks, the study subjects on the control diet weighed the same
as when the study started. But study subjects on the high-carbohydrate
diet lost weight: about five pounds on average for those in the
high-carbohydrate-only group and about 10 pounds for those in the
high-carbohydrate-plus-exercise group.
To the study authors and media, these superficial "results" apparently
prove that you can lose weight while eating as many carbohydrates as you
like ¯ and you don't even have to exercise.
It might be a couch potato's fantasy come true ¯ except that the study
details tell a different story.

As it turns out, study subjects in the high-carbohydrate groups consumed
about 400-600 calories less per day than those in the control group.
Over the 12-week period of the study, then, the average study subject in
the high-carbohydrate group consumed about 42,000 calories less than the
average study subject in the control group.
Since a pound of fat represents about 3,500 calories, it's no wonder why
those in the high-carbohydrate group lost weight. It was because they
ate less, not because of any magical effects of a high-carbohydrate
diet.

Although the media's apparent lack of interest in examining the actual
study data is disappointing, the inaccurate description of the study to
the media by lead author William J. Evans of the University of Arkansas
for Medical Sciences is even more dismaying.
He told Reuters that the study subjects ate "around 2,500 calories per
day," thereby implying that the only difference in their diets was the
amount of carbohydrates. That's just plain misleading.

Control group subjects averaged 2,825 calories per day during the
12-week study; high-carbohydrate group subjects averaged 2250 calories
per day and high-carbohydrate-plus-exercise subjects averaged 2,413
calories.
Such variation over 12 weeks adds up to significant differences in total
caloric intake and is most likely what produced the observed weight loss
in the high-carbohydrate groups.
The study authors then had the audacity to slam low-carbohydrate diets,
such as the Atkins diet, as a means to lose weight.
"Little evidence exists to support this idea," wrote the study authors.
But it appears that there's not even that much evidence in favor of
their all-the-carbs-you-can-eat idea.
It's no secret that nutrition nannies in the federal government oppose
high-protein/low-carbohydrate diets like the Atkins plan ¯ not because
such diets don't work but because their fat-is-OK approach contradicts
the nannies' low-fat dietary prescriptions of the last 30 years. (The
irony of course is that obesity has supposedly skyrocketed while America
went low-fat.)

Evans and his group, not surprisingly, were funded by the National
Institutes of Health, a government group that claims in bold-face on its
Web site that "[High-protein/low-carb diets are] not a healthy way to
lose weight!"
That may or may not be true. Much more research is needed. Hopefully
that research won't be conducted by biased, government-funded research
hacks.
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109890,00.htm