Low-Fat Vegan Diet Outperforms Mediterranean Diet for Weight Loss

A new analysis finds that a low-fat vegan diet leads too greater weight loss than the Mediterranean diet, even when it includes foods labeled “unhealthful” in plant-based diet scoring systems.

Eating a vegan diet leads people to consume a wider range of plant-based foods, including items labeled as “unhealthy” in the plant-based diet index, and this pattern was linked to greater weight loss than the Mediterranean diet, according to a new analysis from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine published in Frontiers in Nutrition.

The study found that several factors supported weight loss: excluding animal products; eating foods such as potatoes and refined grains (both categorized as “unhealthy” in the plant-based diet index); and limiting added oils and nuts (classified as “healthy” in the same index).

Study Background

“Our research shows that even when a low-fat vegan diet includes so-called unhealthy plant-based foods-as defined by the plant-based diet index-like refined grains and potatoes, it’s better than the Mediterranean diet for weight loss, as it avoids animal products and added oils,” says Hana Kahleova, MD, PhD, lead researcher and director of clinical research at the Physicians Committee.