Diet	Commercial examples	Calorie restriction?	Fat intake	Fruit and vegetable intake	Saturated and trans -fat intake	Challenges	Summary
Very low-carbohydrate^2–11	Atkins diet	No	Unlimited	Severely limited	Unlimited, but discouraged	Requires urine ketone monitoring	No patient-oriented outcomes or long-term data; may improve triglyceride and HDL levels; better for short-term weight loss
Low-carbohydrate/low-glycemic index^9,11–15	South Beach Diet, the Zone, Sugar Busters!	No	Unlimited	Limited	Limited	Requires knowledge of glycemic index	Offers sound principles without ample patient-oriented data
Very low-fat^9,11,16–22	Ornish diet	No	Less than 10 percent of total calories	Vegetarian-based diet	None	Requires meditation, vegetarian diet, smoking cessation	Perfusion improvements and symptom reductions; very strict diet; lowers HDL levels
Mediterranean diet^23–31	NA	No	Unlimited	Unlimited	Limited	Costly, limited in some populations because of lack of produce or fatty acid sources	Excellent mortality data, but limited study populations
American Heart Association guidelines³²	NA	Yes	Unlimited	Unlimited	Saturated fat: less than 7 percent of total calories Trans-fat: Less than 1 percent of total calories	Broad guidelines	Same as TLC Diet, but with a greater emphasis on overall cardiovascular risk reduction and population health improvements