Going by the findings of a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, November 9 issue, though the high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet can help overweight people shed some of their weight; such a carb-restricted diet can affect a person’s mood and can lead to glumness.

For the study, the researchers in Australia observed over 100 overweight adults; of which 50 were assigned to a low-fat diet and 50 others were given a low-carb diet.

It was noticed that while people in both groups lost nearly thirty ponds on average; the end of the year saw that while the low-fat-diet people continued feeling good, their counterparts on the low
-carb diet depicted more negative baseline moods.

Noting that the calorie-consumption for both groups was almost the same, the study’s author Grant D. Brinkworth – who is a research scientist with the Adelaide, Australia-based Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization’s food and nutritional sciences division – said that while both the diet types led to weight-loss in the obese, there were more positive ‘mood- related’ effects associated with the traditional high-carb, low-fat diet vis-à-vis the low-carb, high-fat one.

Commenting on the findings of the study, Dr. Caroline Apovian, the Boston Medical Center’s Director of Nutrition and Weight Management, said: “Low-carb diets are terrific for weight loss. But sometimes there are people who need their carbohydrates to keep up their good mood because serotonin levels may drop.”