Researchers said that previous studies had led them to expect that a high-protein diet would lead to lower weight gain.

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The menu items were the same for each participant, Dr. Bray said, but a participant on the low-protein diet would have gotten more mayonnaise and less tuna in a tuna fish salad, while the high-protein diet was extra tuna with little mayonnaise.

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Half the women were put onto the high-protein diet while the rest had a high-carbohydrate eating plan.

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It wasn't until 2001 that some experts acknowledged that a low-carb, high-protein diet may have merit.

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But the researchers said women with high triglyceride levels - a marker of insulin resistance - shed far more weight on the high-protein diet.

BBC: NEWS | Health | High protein diet 'under attack'

Dr Elizabeth Weichselbaum, a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, says meat is an important source of a number of nutrients in our diet, including high quality protein, iron, zinc, selenium, vitamin D and some B vitamins.

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Marrena Lindberg, 38, a homemaker near Boston, concocted her own "orgasmic diet" of high-protein fish oil and paired it with pelvic exercises.

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In mice, a protein connected to inflammatory reactions appeared to be switched on when the animals were given a high fat, high sugar diet.

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