Thousands of diets are in there. Some are for weight loss, while others are for weight gain, cholesterol reduction, a long and balanced life and many other factors.
A diet is best defined as a set eating and drinking schedule where the form and amount of food is designed for weight loss or a specific lifestyle to follow.
This article from the Nccmed Knowledge Center offers descriptions of the most popular diets according to three criteria: the amount of articles covering them, how popular they seem to be, and how much we get feedback on them.
Atkins diet
The Atkins diet, or Atkins nutritional approach, focuses on regulating insulin levels in the body through a diet that is low in carbohydrate.
As people eat large amounts of processed carbohydrates, their insulin levels increase and fall rapidly. — levels of insulin cause the body to store energy from the ingested food, making it less likely that the body will be using stored fat as a source of energy.
The Atkins Diet comes with some risks though common for some time. People contemplating the Atkins Diet should talk to their doctor.
The Zone diet
The diet in the Zone is aimed at a nutritious balance of 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent fats, and 30% protein in each meal. The focus is also on regulating insulin levels which can lead to more effective weight loss and regulation of body weight than other strategies.
The Zone diet allows high-quality carbohydrates to be eaten – unrefined carbohydrates and fats such as olive oil, avocado, and nuts.
Ketogenic diet
For decades, the ketogenic diet has been used as an epilepsy treatment, and is now being studied for other uses. This involves a decrease in carbohydrate consumption and an rise in fat intake. This seems counter to common sense, but rather than carbohydrates, this helps the body to use fat as a fuel.
Healthy fats such as those in avocados, coconuts, Brazilian nuts, beans, fatty fish, and olive oil are usually added to the diet in order to maintain an overall fat concentration.
The diet allows the fat deposits to be broken down for fuel and releases compounds called ketones through a mechanism called ketosis. Nonetheless, this diet has risks for people with type 1 diabetes, including ketoacidosis, which can lead to diabetic coma which death. While most studies are 2 years or less, there is some positive work relating to the management of diabetes, metabolic health, weight loss, and improvement in body composition.
Vegetarian diet
There are various types of vegetarians: dairy, lacto-vegetarian, dairy, lacto-ovo vegetarian, vegetarian, ovo-vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian, and semi-vegetarian.
Most vegetarians are lacto-ovo vegetarians, that is, they do not consume foods dependent on animals, except for eggs, dairy and honey.
Over the last few years, studies have shown that vegetarians have a lower body weight, suffer less from diseases, and typically have a longer life expectancy than meat eating people.
Vegan diet
Veganism is a way of life, and a philosophy, rather than a diet. A vegan consumes no animal-based food, including eggs, dairy and honey. Vegans typically follow veganism not only for reasons of health but also for economic, ethical and humane reasons.
Vegans agree that modern methods of industrial farming are bad for our climate, and unsustainable in the long run. If everybody consumed plant-based food, it would help the world, animals would suffer less, more food would be made, and people would enjoy better physical and mental health in general, say vegans.
Weight Watchers diet
Weight Watchers focuses on weight loss by diet, exercise and a network of services.
In the 1960s, Weight Watchers Inc. was started by a homemaker who had lost some weight and was afraid that she would put it on again. So, she had built a friends network. Weight Watchers is an immense organization, with branches across the world.
Dieters may either be physically active and attend daily meetings, or online. There’s plenty of support and guidance available to the dieter in both cases.
South Beach diet
A cardiologist, Dr Agatston, and a nutritionist, Marie Almon, began the South Beach diet. It focuses on insulin regulation levels, and the advantages of unrefined slow carbohydrates versus fast carbohydrates. During the 1990s, Dr. Agatston invented the South Beach diet because he was frustrated with the American Heart Association’s low-fat, high-carb diet. He claimed low-fat diets would not be effective in the long run.
Raw food diet
The raw food diet, or raw food, includes eating unprocessed foods and beverages, is completely plant-based, and preferably organic.
Raw foodists agree that a person’s food consumption should consist of at least three quarters of uncooked food. Also, a small number of raw foodists are vegans, so they do not consume or drink anything dependent on animals.
Four major types of raw foods exist: raw vegetarians, raw vegans, raw omnivores, and raw carnivores.
Mediterranean diet
Southern Europe’s Mediterranean diet focuses more precisely on the dietary patterns of the people of Crete, Greece, and southern Italy. Also included today are Spain, southern France and Portugal, while Portugal does not touch the Mediterranean Sea.
The emphasis is on plenty of plant foods, fresh fruits such as berries, beans, nuts, whole grains, seeds, olive oil as the main dietary fat source. The principal dairy products are cheese and yogurts. The diet also includes large quantities of poultry and fish, up to around four eggs a week, minimal quantities of red meat and low to large amounts of wine.
Up to one-third of the Mediterranean diet is fat, with saturated fats not exceeding eight percent of calorie intake. The Mediterranean diet is the most commonly researched diet to date, with credible evidence supporting its use to improve a person’s quality of life and raising the risk of illness.
Western diet: Risks
Dr. Tasnime Akbaraly from Montpellier, France, and team conducted a study which found that the Western-style diet, which is high in sweet and fried foods, increases a person’s risk of early death. Their results were published in the American Journal of Medicine.
Akbaraly said “The impact of diet on different age-related diseases has been extensively studied, but few studies have taken a more systematic approach to evaluating the relationship between diet and overall health at older ages. We investigated whether diet, measured in midlife, using dietary habits and adherence to the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), is correlated with ageing phenotypes, detected after a mean 16-year follow-up.
“The team found that study participants who strayed from the” Alternative Healthy Eating Index “had a substantially higher risk of cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular death.
