Research Suggests Advantages to Beefing Up Your Diet

Research by University of Illinois professor Dr. Donald Layman has gained headlines lately with an attack on America’s waistline – and fad diets.

Layman’s research, funded in part by America’s beef producers through their $1-per head beef checkoff, has provided evidence about the benefits of higher protein diets centered around beef for improving weight loss, lowering cholesterol, and overall satisfaction with diets in overweight women.  A long-term study is underway to show how beef can enhance weight loss, keep muscle tone and improve people’s ability to keep the weight off once the diet ends.  Three manuscripts published in professional journals this year helped communicate these outcomes to nutrition experts and health professionals.

Recently, Layman has been on the road presenting these findings to health care professionals. He is scheduled to speak at several conferences this fall, including the Metabolic Syndrome Conference at the University of Kansas in September, and the October conference for the American Society of Bariatic Physicians in Chicago, Ill

Layman spoke at the summer conference of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians in Dallas, Texas. This program attracted more than 250 family physicians who attended to hear the debate about benefits of protein-based diets versus carbohydrate-based diets.

Texas beef producer and Cattlemen’s Beef Board Member Verlin Callahan attended the meeting. “This research demonstrates the importance of high quality protein like beef in diets and positions our industry to advocate increased beef consumption as an important part of a balanced, healthy diet,” he says.

Layman’s research suggests that eating more high quality protein will increase the amount of leucine, an amino acid, in the diet, helping a person maintain muscle mass and reduce body fat during weight loss.  Maintaining muscle during weight loss efforts is essential because it helps the body burn more calories. 

While the body makes some amino acids, it does not produce leucine, which is found primarily in high quality protein foods such as beef, dairy products, poultry, fish and eggs.

Layman studied a group of mid-life overweight women. One group ate according to the USDA Food Guide Pyramid and the other built their diets around high-quality proteins like beef. Both diet groups lost a similar amount of weight, about 16 pounds, but the study group lost more body fat and less muscle mass than the control group.  Those who followed the moderately high protein diet lost two pounds more of body fat, yet maintained one pound more muscle than the control group.

Most of the public debate about diets continues to focus on the extremes of very high (Atkins Plan) or very low (Ornish Plan) levels of proteins. Layman’s plan falls within the protein range recently recommended by the National Academy of Sciences Food and Nutrition Board. The USDA Food Guide Pyramid falls at the low end of the accepted protein range.

The study challenges the conventional wisdom about the role of low-fat foods in weight loss, Layman says.

“Traditionally, people have built a diet around low-fat foods, instead of high quality protein foods.  Study participants following the moderately high protein plan, which I call the ‘Sensible Solution,’ were twice as effective in maintaining lean muscle mass,” he says. “Muscle helps burn calories, but is often compromised during weight loss.”

Nutrition experts have long debated the virtues of many of the high protein diets because of conventional concerns related to the consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol.  However, Layman says, the opposite was true in his study.  “The group following my diet lost fat, maintained muscle and had an improvement in total blood cholesterol level.  Subjects found the eating plan easy to follow, allowing them to enjoy foods from all the food groups.”

Additional findings showed that women in the study group were less hungry between meals than were those following the traditional diet.  The study group also experienced more stable blood glucose levels and reduced insulin response following meals.  Both groups had reductions in total blood cholesterol, but the study group also had decreased triglyceride levels.