Short Takes - 2005-01-06

Only one in four people stick to a diet for a full year, finds a study of 160 overweight adults assigned to weight-loss programs. All four diets in the study - Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers and the Zone -- worked well for weight loss and heart disease reduction risk - but only in the people who could follow their diet closely for a year. Overall, successful dieters lost an average of 10 to 20 pounds after one year, and one in 10 dieters lost more than 25 pounds. The study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.