Many diets sold to the public have no scientific basis and can be summed up as “nutribabble”, according to experts.
Branded diets such as the high-protein, high-fat, low-carbohydrate Atkins Diet, or the“Paleo” trend, which avoids foods a caveman would not have recognised, do not instil good long-term eating habits, they argue.
Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Branded diets that promise shortcut ways to lose weight or improve health are sometimes supported by individual pieces of research but rarely by the overall body of available evidence on which guidelines are based.
“We try to encourage people to forget the fad diets, which can lead to weight gain after you stop the diet, and adopt a whole-diet approach.”
Simon Capewell, professor