Pasta may actually help you lose weight.

selection of pasta

Pasta makes you fat or does it?  Pasta is a traditional component of the Italian diet.  Unfortunately, pasta has limited research that details its role in the management of body weight. Pasta has long had a reputation for being the central cause of many of us being overweight.   For years, I have personally avoided pasta because I have been told that it is not conducive to successful weight loss.  I love pasta, so this is quite a deprivation for me to give it up.  The good news is that neither of us may have to give it up anymore because new research points to pasta bring linked to a lower level of obesity.  

A new study from 2016 that appeared in Nutrition & Diabetes appears to show that pasta consumption is beneficial for weight loss[1].  The subjects of the study totaled nearly  24,000 Italian participants.  The researchers used a food frequency questionnaire and 24-hour dietary to assess dietary intake. They also collected weight, height, waist and hip circumference. The researchers found that higher pasta intake was associated with better adhesion to a Mediterranean diet in both genders. Pasta intake was significantly and negatively associated with BMI and negatively associated with waist and hip circumference and waist-to-hip ratio.

The bottom line: Pasta consumption, as a part of a Mediterranean diet, was negatively associated with BMI, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio and with a lower prevalence of overweight and obesity.  In other words, pasta consumption was associated with a lower rate obesity.