Correction: Low carbohydrate versus isoenergetic balanced diets for reducing weight and cardiovascular risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis (PLoS ONE (2014) 9: 7 (e100652) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0100652)

Abstract

In response to questions raised about this article [1] following its publication and a criticism and rebuttal that were published in the South African Medical Journal [2, 3], PLOS ONE did a full re-evaluation of this article, advised by Editorial Board members and a statistical reviewer. Based on this assessment, the PLOS ONE Editors concluded that some corrections and clarifications are needed; these are addressed below. With these amendments, the article meets PLOS ONE’s publication criteria and the conclusions of the article stand. The following errors were noted following publication: The authors made a typographical error in Table 3. The range of Fat for Balanced should be 20–35% and not 25–35% as in the published table. The cut-offs pertain to criteria for inclusion of studies in the systematic review. These cut-offs were based on the international guidelines, which are referenced in the paper. The authors confirmed that they correctly applied 20% as an inclusion criterion when conducting the study. Although this typographical error does not directly influence the results and conclusions of the systematic review, there are 2 included trials [4, 5] where the control diets had fat ranges that do not comply with the cut-off value that was incorrectly reported in Table 3, and thus they would have been excluded from the review had the incorrect range reported in the original Table 3 been applied. Please see the corrected Table 3 here. (Table Presented). A reader pointed out that the same study was reported in two articles included in the systematic review, cited in the original article as references 28 and 39 [6, 7]; hence this study was represented in duplicate in the meta-analysis. The two papers, published in the same year, did not reference each other, so it was unclear from the published record that they reported results from the same trial (n = 36), though the trial's investigators confirmed this point in January 2017 when contacted by the authors. The duplication only affects the meta-analysis reported in Fig 3 and the following sentences in the Results section, where the duplicate paper is represented by reference 39: (Figure Presented).