Background

The Pritikin diet is a low calorie, high bulk, low fat, and low cholesterol diet. People who follow the Pritikin diet generally eat foods that have an average of less than ten percent of daily calories from fat. The diet includes a lot of vegetables and fruits, and those who adhere to it avoid processed and fatty foods. Regular exercise is also incorporated into the lifestyle modifications advocated by the Pritikin diet.

Advocates of the Pritikin diet claim that the eating plan will help people improve health and weight loss is a secondary goal. Today, some people choose the Pritikin diet because it does not restrict the amount of food that may be consumed in one sitting.

People use this for...

Safety Safety definitions

Pregnancy And Lactation: There is insufficient reliable evidence about the safety of the Pritikin diet in pregnancy/lactation. However, there is no reason to expect safety issues.

Effectiveness Effectiveness definitions

There is insufficient reliable evidence about the effectiveness of the Pritikin diet.

Natural Medicines rates effectiveness based on scientific evidence according to the following scale: Effective, Likely Effective, Possibly Effective, Possibly Ineffective, Likely Ineffective, Ineffective, and Insufficient Evidence to Rate.

Dosing & administration

Adverse effects

Interactions with pharmaceuticals

None known.

Interactions with herbs & supplements

None known.

Interactions with foods

None known.

Interactions with lab tests

Interactions with diseases

Mechanism of action

The primary premise of the Pritikin diet is that individuals in industrialized nations consume too many processed, high fat, high calorie foods with too few nutrients. Advocates claim that these types of foods quickly fill people up, but provide too many fats and too few vitamins and minerals.

Processed foods are avoided on the premise that they contain many additives and artificial ingredients that do not promote a healthy state of being, while also adding many unnecessary calories and fats to the diet.

High fiber, low calorie, low fat, and non-processed foods are emphasized on the premise that a person will experience fullness and obtain many beneficial nutrients without the negative effects of foods typical to the diets of most people in industrialized nations.