Low-calorie diet lowers risk factors

Their arteries looked more like children’s than adults. Eighteen people who voluntarily restricted their diets to between 1,100 and 1,950 calories for an average of six years lowered their cholesterol, their blood pressure and their risk of diabetes. The typical Western diet is between 1,975 and 3,550 calories.

The study from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis was published online yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read a Washington Post story on the study.