The Zone Diet Case

The Zone Diet makes many claims, but arguably the most relevant to people is weight loss. With the plethora of diets being promoted to consumers something has to indicate if the diet works to provide weight loss. Additionally, the diet should be able to have a level of sustainability for the consumer to achieve long term health. With some of the restrictions placed on the consumer by the diets and the prevalence of factors to derail the progress of those attempting the diets, it’s is interesting to see if folks finish the diet they start over a long period of time.
The ability to test for valid results is quite a challenge. Moreover, holding a study that is able to span long periods of time can be taxing and expensive. For those reasons, the majority of studies on these diets come from the people or companies putting out the product. Much of the findings tend to favor the point of view of the product’s agent.

Michael Dansinger and his team. They set out to perform a randomized trial of some of the big diets of the day. The objectives include assessing the adherence rates of Zone as well as Atkins, Weight Watchers, and Ornish diets. The sample group consisted of 160 people. Participants ranged from 22 to 72 and had a mean BMI of 35. The trail lasted from July 2000 until January 2002. The members were given strict guidance for the first two months and then left to their own devices after that time.
While the study found many people did not finish the diets, they did note ones that finished had the greatest overall results. One thing noted by all diets is a “significantly reduced the low-density lipoprotein/high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol ratio by approximately 10%” (Dansinger, Gleason, Griffith, Selker, & Schaefer,