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Background Mediterranean (MED) diet is a rich source of polyphenols, which benefit adiposity by several mechanisms. We explored the effect of the green-MED diet, twice fortified in dietary polyphenols and lower in red/processed meat, on visceral adipose tissue (VAT).

Methods In the 18-month Dietary Intervention Randomized Controlled Trial PoLyphenols UnproceSsed (DIRECT-PLUS) weight-loss trial, 294 participants were randomized to (A) healthy dietary guidelines (HDG), (B) MED, or (C) green-MED diets, all combined with physical activity. Both isocaloric MED groups consumed 28 g/day of walnuts (+ 440 mg/day polyphenols). The green-MED group further consumed green tea (3–4 cups/day) and Wolffia globosa (duckweed strain) plant green shake (100 g frozen cubes/day) (+ 800mg/day polyphenols) and reduced red meat intake. We used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to quantify the abdominal adipose tissues.

Results Participants (age = 51 years; 88% men; body mass index = 31.2 kg/m2; 29% VAT) had an 89.8% retention rate and 79.3% completed eligible MRIs. While both MED diets reached similar moderate weight (MED: − 2.7%, green-MED: − 3.9%) and waist circumference (MED: − 4.7%, green-MED: − 5.7%) loss, the green-MED dieters doubled the VAT loss (HDG: − 4.2%, MED: − 6.0%, green-MED: − 14.1%; p < 0.05, independent of age, sex, waist circumference, or weight loss). Higher dietary consumption of green tea, walnuts, and Wolffia globosa; lower red meat intake; higher total plasma polyphenols (mainly hippuric acid), and elevated urine urolithin A polyphenol were significantly related to greater VAT loss (p < 0.05, multivariate models).

It's remarkable how so many fields from bromatology to nutrition to gerontology are converging on plant-based diets being healthier than their counterparts

Maybe whatever areas of the Internet you're in. The low carb/keto/carnivore world I inhabit, it's the opposite.

Not that I don’t find that phenomenal, but the Green-Mediterranean diet here is not a plant based diet.

Maybe the causation is more correlated to the foods which both diets aim to eliminate?

Ya. I think it’s likely more about what’s NOT being eaten.

I can see a short-term benefit to low carb and keto since they are diets that naturally reduce appetite and thus lead to weight loss (which, on an axis and up to a certain degree, is correlated with health benefits).

I'm yet to see a short or long term benefit to a carnivore diet

It's likely just health benefits from weight lost, which usually is a short-term gain.

Plant-based diets are also associated with long-term gains in longevity

It does substitute red meat for mostly vegetables

> The green protein shake was partially substituted for dinner, replacing beef/poultry protein sources

People aren't all the same. Metabolism differs between genotypes. Some people are terrible at fat absorption, it's kind of a super power according to some lipidologists. They can eat a high fat, low carb diet and have perfectly healthy cholesterol and triglycerides and so on. Others hyper absorb fat. Low fat, high carb diets are probably best in that case.

Then 'normal' people have metabolic flexibility. In healthy people the gut lining expunges excessive fats and they're excreted. In low absorbers the gut lining often doesn't even uptake it, and it's excreted. In high absorbers the gut uptakes fat readily but 'doesn't get the signal' to release fat back into the lumen, so excessive fats move into the lymphatic system or directly into the bloodstream, possibly wreaking havoc.

“Can reduce that abdominal fat?” Why editorialize the title?

Actual title: The effect of high-polyphenol Mediterranean diet on visceral adiposity: the DIRECT PLUS randomized controlled trial

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My intention was to draw attention to the similarities of these diets, rather than focusing on whether or not "plant-based", "keto", or "carnivore" is the superior diet.

I don’t gather that from the article. It states “reduced red meat consumption”, which could still equate to poultry and fish consumption.

It does add the greens shake, but it does not discuss overall animal product consumption.

Then keep reading, they contrast MED (which has poultry and fish and red meat) and green MED (which has poultry and fish and more vegetables). Guess which one performed better

If you could point to where it discusses overall protein substitution or meat reduction between the two MED diets, I’d love to concede, but it simply does not. The reduction of red meat consumption and the addition of the plant shake does not equal to reduced poultry and fish consumption.

I misexpressed myself so I edited my comment to better reflect what I thought I had said.

The poultry and fish consumption across both MED diets is the same, but the green MED has less red meat and more vegetables.

It would make no sense (and be a terrible control) if they changed other variables beyond the one they are trying to test (red meat vs. vegetables)

Why not editorialize? It’s literally a conclusion of the paper

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> I'm yet to see a short or long term benefit to a carnivore diet

That's because you never looked, and probably never will.

A major criticism against outspoken vegans is that these are not people who considered all the data with an open mind, and then decided veganism is the best diet for them. They are people who got into veganism for moral reasons and then proceeded to only look for data that aligns with said moral inclination.

> That's because you never looked, and probably never will.

I review biomedical literature daily for my job.

> A major criticism against outspoken vegans is that these are not people who considered at all the data with an open mind

Fascinating, but off-topic. I'm not vegan.

> They are people who got into veganism for moral reasons and then proceeded to only look for data that aligns with said moral inclination.

Rich coming from someone who just made two awfully wrong assumptions in a single paragraph.

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I think you’re misreading my comment, friend. I’m suggesting that the reduction of red meat does not mean that overall meat consumption is reduced (including animals of non-land habitation).

Healthy dieters (food guidelines) lost 4.2 percent visceral fat. (Title said 4.5%).

That doesn't make it a plant based diet though, does it?

No it does not

This is really poorly controlled study. The fact that they used Green Tea as the source of added polyphenols negates any sort of attribution to the effect being just the polyphenols.

Green Tea also has caffeine and catchetins which work on adrenergic receptors to signal increased blood flow to the abdomen.

This is either incompetence or agenda based.

The green in the name seems to be (besides green tea) duckweed (Wolffia globosa), and wouldn’t you know it, a new line of duckweed products is about to hit the market.

If my weekly meat consumption is 3 kilos and I eliminate the red meat bringing my weekly consumption down to 2 kilos, then my overall meat consumption is reduced. If I replace that with a kilo of fish or fowl, then overall meat consumption is not reduced. Does the diet say to replace the red with non-red?

Fish and fowl are demonstrably healthier than red meat and are better for you. Increasing non-red meat consumption would be beneficial despite your vegan protestations.

The parent comment was discussing a plant-based diet, which excludes food sources from animals - land, fish, or fowl. I was simply clarifying that this study does not examine a plant-based diet, though it does support one that is vegetable-rich.

No one is arguing the merit of reducing red meat consumption - only that the article does not explicitly discuss overall meat consumption. You are correct in asserting the article does not state participants replaced red meat with poultry or fish, but the article does not explicitly state that they did not either.

> You are correct in asserting the article does not state participants replaced red meat with poultry or fish, but the article does not explicitly state that they did not either.

In the contrast with the traditional Mediterranean diet vs the green Mediterranean diet, it was replaced with vegetables.

>I review biomedical literature daily for my job.

>two awfully wrong assumptions

My stated claim is that you haven't looked into the matter, not that you are vegan, and not that you don't have a related job. I dislike that you nitpick at these points without addressing the actual claim.

The reason I doubt you've looked into the matter is because the elimination of processed foods is responsible for many of the health benefits we see from alternate diets. This would include any carnivore diets that also eliminate processed foods, as is evidenced by a plethora of studies showing so called "short or long term" benefits you've "yet to see."

Please provide a quote from the article that asserts there was a replacement involved. This seems to be a misinterpretation and does not defer to the verbiage used in the article.

Edit: Thanks to u/Moont1de for showing me the part where it was replaced for some red meat, which reduces the overall meat consumption. My apologies for the misunderstanding.

> I dislike that you nitpick at these points without addressing the actual claim.

What claim? Even if we pretend that you did not imply that I am vegan and rather just went on an entirely unrelated tangent about veganism for no reason at all, your comment is void of any point that is not an easily disproven assumption.

> The reason I doubt you've looked into the matter is because the elimination of processed foods is responsible for many of the health benefits we see from alternate diets.

This is a sophomoric understanding of the state of the art of the bromatology and nutrition scholarly fields, hypothesis design in modern studies accounts for this variable and does not simply compare diets with processed products vs. without.

> This would include any carnivore diets that also eliminate processed foods

There is evidence that eliminating processed foods (if you define processed foods in the very specific framework of ultra-processed foods) leads to short-term benefits such as weight loss and improved cardiovascular health, and long-term reductions in overall mortality. When you account for that variable, I have not seen a single study whatsoever that shows short or long-term benefits to carnivore diets.

I have seen such results for plant-based or low-meat diets.

sigh

> The green protein shake was partially substituted for dinner, replacing beef/poultry protein sources

Excellent. Thank you. Just reread the methods and spotted this.

Are you going to edit your other comments? This is very buried

It substitutes nothing, because it never included red meat to start with.

Although some red meat consumption was substituted for the Mankai shake, it still does not make the case for a plant based (vegan) diet, only one rich in polyphenols.

/r/confidentlyincorrect

The green protein shake was partially substituted for dinner, replacing beef/poultry protein sources

>Green Mediterranean diet

It depends on how you define plant based. If you define it as a diet mostly focused on plants, then it is plant based. If you define it as a diet with no animal products, then it's not. Seeing as both are common usages of the word, my take away is that plant based is pretty much meaningless.

I am referring to your comments where you accuse me of misinterpretation and the comment where you say there was no substitution

"Wolffia globosa (duckweed strain) plant green shake (100 g frozen cubes/day)"

:P

I wonder if they just didn't eat the duckweed globosa "shake" and therefore lost weight due to reduced calorie intake.

Someone knows how to follow the $cience^TM

So all that duckweed in my fishtank is something I should eat?

>What claim? Even if we pretend ....your comment is void of any point that is not an easily disproven assumption.

What's funny is I initially misread the triple negative to mean that you purposely ignored my accusation because neither you nor I could feasibly prove via a reddit thread what dietary studies you've read in the past — i.e. whether you've looked into carnivore diets is not easily proven or disproven, and therefore a pointless avenue of argument. I was prepared to shrug, agree, and move on.

Then I realized you meant "What point? Even if there is a point it's easily disproven anyway" while neglecting to include any such proof.

>When you account for that variable, I have not seen a single study whatsoever that shows short or long-term benefits to carnivore diets.

>I have seen such results for plant-based or low-meat diets.

For sake of argument, if I gave you full confidence, then my question is to clarify what point of reference these diets are being compared to when determining short and long term health benefits.

I have the same issue with the initial post:

>I can see a short-term benefit to low carb and keto since they are diets that naturally reduce appetite and thus lead to weight loss...I'm yet to see a short or long term benefit to a carnivore diet

Just accept the L dude. You made bad assumptions and got called out on it.

I'd rather just get the facts and not someone's interpretation of it. There's probably a science opinions subreddit for that kind of content.

> I'd rather just get the facts and not someone's interpretation of it.

OP is citing a literal conclusion to the paper.

> There's probably a science opinions subreddit for that kind of content.

The content of this thread is a scientific paper. Perhaps you might want to click on it

>The content of this thread is a scientific paper. Perhaps you might want to click on it

No. The content of the post is a scientific paper.

The content of the thread is the unnecessary editorialization of the content. My opinion stands.

The title of the thread contains 1 (one) editorialized sentence that accurately describes part of the results of the paper linked in the thread. The title includes 4 other sentences that are not editorialized in any way.

You're complaining about 1 (one) a sentence that is not even the opinion of OP, rather just a rewording of the authors' conclusion to make it more palatable to broad audiences.

Looking at the front page of /r/science right now, every single thread has an editorialized title to make it more accessible.

You're grasping at straws

It's also explicitly against community guidelines, so the post will likely - and rightfully - be removed anyway.

I wouldn't hold my breath, it's been up for 13 hours and every single post in the front page has similar editorialization.

It's literally against the subs rules to do exactly what they did.

I'm not grasping at anything. The title of the post should be the title of the study, period. I didn't post the original complaint, so it's not just me. Nobody wants someone's swayed portrayal of what the study is about when an actual factbased title is already available and required. It's a gratuitous spin and it's unnecessary.

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If this user has a reasonable answer for what looks like a glaring inconsistency in their claims; I was intending on politely bowing out.

This guy argues in a similar style as vegans and just extremists in general: avoiding simple refutations, identity shenanigans like claiming not to be vegan (sometimes with multi-accounts), and writing in as gaudy a manner as possible to emphasize intellectual superiority. There's also the biggest indicator, which is being willing to write walls of text but becoming coincidentally silent or evasive when you ask evidence based questions, such as a simple clarifying question regarding the methodology of the studies they cite.

Or even the simple question of whether they specifically researched the topic they're arguing about.

Edit: All that amateur writing analysis gets blown away by evidence, however. Psychopaths like that are rare anyway.

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There was an EU paper stating that the high levels of manganese in Wolffia Globosa increases risk of toxicity, therefore shouldn't be used as a supplement

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Also, you never actually even said you have evidence to the contrary (let alone provide any). Just straight in with the personal attacks. You had the chance to win the argument with one link, but here we are instead.

What does increased bloodflow to the abdomen do? Will it reduce visceral fat?

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