Eating Pasta Helps You Lose Weight-New Italian Study

Eating pasta is not fattening and truly decreases the chances of becoming overweight, a new Italian study has found.

For centuries, Mediterranean diets have enjoyed a healthy reputation, but in recent years more and more people have been shunning pasta, believing it to be fattening.

A new survey of more than 23,000 people, however, has related pasta consumption to both lower body mass and waist-to-hip ratio.

Published in the journal Nutrition and Diabetes, the study said pasta consumption is related to better weight management in part because it often takes place as part of a healthy Mediterranean diet.

But researchers at the IRCCS Neuromed Institute in Italy also found that the correlation between pasta intake and lower obesity rates occurred independently of overall diet.

Publication of the paper comes amid a fierce debate in the UK between supporters of official dietary advice, which advocates eating a wholesome intake of carbohydrates but small amounts of fat, and those who argue that fat is not fattening but that carbohydrates should be avoided.