Small calorie cuts, big benefits

Consuming just 300 fewer calories a day—the amount in a large bagel or a few chocolate chip cookies—can have big health benefits, reports The New York Times. In a new study, scientists observed 143 healthy men and women, ages 21 to 50, who tried to cut their daily calorie intake by 25 percent for two years. Many of them fell short, managing only a 12 percent reduction on average—about 300 calories. Yet the health gains from that small cut were significant. Participants lost weight and body fat; their blood pressure dropped; their cholesterol levels and blood sugar control improved; and they had less inflammation. While some of the benefits clearly resulted from the participants’ weight loss, the extent of the metabolic improvement suggested that the calorie reduction itself had some effect, too. “We weren’t surprised that there were changes,” says study leader William Kraus, from Duke University. “But the magnitude was rather astounding. In a disease population, there aren’t five drugs in combination that would cause this aggregate of an improvement.”

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