Dr. David Ludwig, the director of the Optimal Weight for Life Program at Children's Hospital Boston said losing weight on the short term is easier than maintaining it over time. Ludwig co-authored an editorial accompanying the study. He said, The nature of the diet and how that diet affects our underlying biology may have a lot to do with how likely we are to comply, to remain on the diet. People on the high-protein, low-GI diets appear to like this way of eating more, perhaps because they were feeling less hungry and more energetic...or just noticing that they were doing better. There ™s nothing that succeeds like success when it comes to weight loss, he added. He said this could be an easy diet to follow. Adding a serving of nuts and beans to the diet every day and cutting back on the refined grains will produce at least as much dietary change as they obtained in the studyIf everyone in America could cut back on two servings of refined grains and substitute that with one serving of nuts and one serving of beans, the impact on public health would really be potentially enormous, and that's a change within everyone ™s reach.

James O. Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado, who was not a part of the team observed, There is not much difference among the groups right now. But he commended the team for focusing on weight maintenance, an often-overlooked aspect of weight loss. This is the kind of research that ought to be done, he said.

Nutrition researchers have not reached a consensus about how much protein and glycemic index matter for weight loss and weight control. Among children in the study high-protein, low-glycemic-index food consumption reduced the 46% overweight kids to 39% in six months. These results were published this month in the journal Pediatrics.