Can pasta help you to lose weight?

On Monday 4th July, a somewhat implausible headline was gracing world newspapers. From the US to the UK , the claim was “Eating pasta can help you to lose weight” – according to an Italian study.

Can this really be the case? Let’s take a look:

The study

Researchers in Italy looked at 14,402 people aged 35 or over from the Molise region of Italy (called the Moli-sani cohort) and 8,964 people aged 18 or over from all over Italy (called the INHES cohort). These two groups were analysed separately (that tells me already that combining the data produced no results). The dietary survey used was the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer (EPIC study) questionnaire. You can look at it here – see how you would get on trying to remember average consumption of each of those items over the past year.