According to a new research, fatty females with insulin resistance shed more body weight after three months on a low-carbohydrate diet as compared to those who follows a traditional low-fat diet with the similar number of calories.

Study's lead author, Raymond Plodkowski, MD, chief of endocrinology, nutrition and metabolism at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno stated, "The typical diet that physicians recommend for weight loss is a low-fat diet. However, as this study shows, not all people have the same response to diets."

Individuals with insulin resistance, a common precursor for Type 2 diabetes, metabolize carbohydrates abnormally that may have an effect on their rate of weight loss.

"For them, the lower-carb diet is more effective, at least in the short term," Plodkowski said.

At 12-weeks, the research, funded by Jenny Craig weight management and nutrition company and using prepared calorie-controlled meals as part of a behavioral weight loss programme, discovered that the insulin resistant females following a lower-carb diet shed 3.4 pounds more than those following a low-fat diet.

Around 45 obese women aged between 18 and 65 years rook part in the research, and all had insulin resistance, as detected by fasting blood levels of insulin.

Boffins randomly assigned the women to either a low-fat or lower-carb diet. The groups did not differ significantly in average body weight, the authors reported. On average, women in the low-fat diet group weighed 213 pounds, while women in the other group weighed 223 pounds.

The composition of the low-fat diet was 60% of calories from carbs, 20% from fat and 20% from protein. Although the low-carb diet also had 20 percent of calories from protein, it had 45 percent from carbs and 35 percent from primarily unsaturated fats, such as nuts. Diet included a minimum of two fruits and three vegetable servings a day.

Plodkowski stated that use of prepared meals helped make the structured diets easier and more palatable for the dieters.

Both groups lost weight at each monthly weigh-in, but by 12 weeks, the insulin resistant group receiving the lower-carb diet lost significantly more weight, 19.6 pounds versus 16.2 pounds in the low-fat diet group -- approximately 21 percent more on average.

The results of the research were presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego. (With Inputs from Agencies)