Italian researchers have found that eating that bowl of pasta could actually help you maintain a healthy weight.
Advertisement
The classic Italian food is often avoided by dieters due to its high carbohydrate content, but scientists are now claiming it can help people lose weight.
More than 23,000 people in two areas of Italy were asked to record everything they ate in a diary before having their diets analysed.
The next step for researches is to further evaluate food groups most commonly associated with pasta consumption and the Mediterranean diet. “And some people completely ban it from their meals”, said lead author Licia Iacoviello, Head of the Laboratory of Molecular and Nutritional Epidemiology at Neuromed Institute.
Researchers point to the well-documented benefits of Mediterranean diets, which in Italy traditionally include pasta.
No matter who made it first, pasta has been consumed in the Mediterranean region since ancient times and remains a traditional component of that diet today.
Although he believed the key takeaway from the study was the fact those participants who regularly consumed pasta were more likely to follow a balanced Mediterranean diet.
According to the National Pasta Association, it wasn’t until 1892 – more than a century after Jefferson’s discovery – that an actual Italian immigrant, Emanuele Ronzoni, founded the Atlantic Macaroni Co.
However, according to the study’s findings, the beneficial effect of eating pasta on the waistline existed regardless of how faithfully the diet was followed.
A Mediterranean diet, rich in vegetables, fruit, fish, olive oil and whole grains, has been associated with better overall health, a lower risk of heart attacks and strokes and protection against Alzheimer’s disease.
Experts have been torn over whether a high fat, low carbohydrate diet is better for health or whether a low fat, high carbohydrate diet is best.
The researchers have cleared one thing there is no between pasta and BMI.
Not only did the study find no correlation between eating pasta and an unhealthy weight – it was the opposite, because pasta consumption was actually linked to being slimmer.
Study shows that it is wrong to demonize carbs. The study carried out by Italian scientists refutes the age-old theory of Pasta leading to weight gain and says that, pasta consumption is, instead, associated with a lower body mass index, or BMI.
Advertisement
However, breaking research, published in the journal Nutrition and Diabetes, found the exact opposite to be true. This led lots of people to limit pasta consumption, often as part of aggressive “do-it-yourself” diets.
