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  Dietary fat in the typically high-fat American diet (34% of caloric intake)36 is a primary contributor to obesity through its disproportionate contribution of calories per gram (fat: 9 cal/g; protein and carbohydrates: 4 cal/g). In fact, fat is the most calorically dense food component available. Although excess carbohydrates and protein are also converted into fat and stored in adipose tissues, dietary fat is converted into body fat far more readily. And, "unlike carbohydrate and protein, dietary fat is poorly regulated."59 In fact, "a high-fat diet seems to promote energy intake by overriding normal signals of satiety."13 Just as a high-fat diet appears to promote weight gain, lowering the proportion of fat in the diet appears to promote weight loss. The figure below, derived from the data in six published trials, shows a statistically significant positive correlation between reduction in the absolute percentage of fat calories available from the diet and amount of weight lost in overweight/obese people — even though they were allowed to eat as much of the reduced-fat diet as they wished.3 Reduction in Proportion of Fat in the Diet Promotes Weight Loss: Results in 6 Low-Fat Intervention Trials 
Adapted from Astrup, et al.3 Each point represents the result of the achieved reduction in dietary fat and weight loss from one of the six published trials. Weight loss (kg) is the difference between low-fat intervention and a control group. Studies cited are (1) Jeffery, et al.31; (2) Siggaard, et al.56; (3) Shah, et al.53; (4) Schlundt, et al.51; (5) Toubro and Astrup61; and (6) Ornish, et al.44 Managing Patients with Obesity-Related Comorbidities | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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