Two new studies from the hilariously named journal Annals of Internal Medicine shed light on America’s favorite topic: Fatness. Specifically, researchers have found two things – a low carbohydrate diet is preferable to one low in fat calories when it comes to losing weight, and the national rise in obesity rates is definitely linked to the increasing prevalence of diabetes.

For dieting, the results of the study were significant: Subjects on the low-carb plan lost an average of 7.7 pounds more than their low-fat counterparts. Oddly, at the three and six-month marks, low-fat participants saw a greater reduction in their waistline measurements. After 12 months, however, there was no difference between them and the low-carb participants.

The study included 148 men and women, none of which had clinical cardiovascular disease or diabetes. The diet methodology was somewhat disparate: The low-carbers had to consume fewer than 40 grams of carbohydrates per day, while the low-fatters had to consume fewer than 30% of their total calories from fat. In fact, whether such a diet can be called “low-fat” is questionable – most healthy eating guidelines recommend participants take in just at or less than 1/3 of their daily calories from fat anyway.

It was not stated whether or not participants gained back any of the weight lost during the study.

In other news, researchers have found that increased Body Mass Index (BMI) is the single greatest contributing factor to to the observed increase in diabetes prevalence since 1976. They found that the prevalence of diabetes nearly doubled from 1976 to 1980 and also from 1999 to 2004, more related to obesity than age or race. The researchers suggest that public health efforts should focus on interventions that address obesity.