My view on low carb diets? It’s complicated.
Friday, July 31, 2009 16:42Q. From reading your blog it seems that a lot of your readers back low carb diets. Being a student studying nutrition, everything I have read has said that a low carb diet is terrible for your health. Can you address your views on this in your blog?
A. It's something that comes up a lot on the blog and always seems to elicit very strong opinions. Several regular commenters are quite ardent about the evils of carbohydrates. My views are somewhat more moderate. I do think that refined carbohydrates are a big part of the problem with the Western diet. I think that overconsumption of refined carbohydrates (especially in the context of a sedentary lifestyle) contributes to obesity, diabetes and related metabolic issues, and heart disease.
However, I don't think it's necessary to eliminate all grains and starches from the diet in order to lose weight and/or be healthy. Regardless of how cavemen ate, I think a diet that contains balanced amounts of good-quality carbohydrates, fats, and proteins is ideal for modern humans. Nonetheless, some people have found a low-carb lifestyle to be life and health-changing.
I'm surprised to hear you say, though, that "everything I've read has said that a low carb diet is terrible for your health." Although the studies over the years have been mixed, there are plenty of studies showing that low-carb regimes are at least as effective in producing weight loss, controlling blood sugar, and even improving heart risk factors as low fat regimens.
For example, just this week, a study came out saying that low-carb and low-fat diets were equally effective in helping diabetics lose weight and control their blood sugar. Plus, the low-carb dieters had a greater increase in HDL ("good") cholesterol after one year on the regimen.
Obviously, it's way too simplistic to characterize carbs (or low-carb diets) as good or bad. What kind of carbs? What's the rest of the diet look like? What's the overall lifestyle look like? It's not a one-size-fits all situation. And all low-carb diets are not the same. For more of my views on this complex topic (and those of lots of opinionated readers), see also these related posts:
Another log on the low-carb fire
People who eat more carbs tend to be thinner?