Low-carb Review Article

The other day, I came across this nice review article from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It gives a thorough but accessible overview of the current state of research into carbohydrate-restricted diets, without all the fatophobic mumbo-jumbo. It points out a few “elephants in the room” that the mainstream likes to ignore. First of all, the current approach isn’t working:

The persistence of an epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetessuggests that new nutritional strategies are needed if the epidemicis to be overcome.

They claim that preagricultural diets were low in carbohydrate:

In contrast to current Western diets, the traditional dietsof many preagricultural peoples were relatively low in carbohydrate(1, 2). In North America, for example, the traditional dietof many First Nations peoples of Canada before European migrationcomprised fish, meat, wild plants, and berries. The change inlifestyle of several North American aboriginal populations occurredas recently as the late 1800s, and the numerous ensuing healthproblems were extensively documented (3-5). Whereas many aspectsof lifestyle were altered with modernization, these researcherssuspected that the health problems came from the change in nutrition—specifically,the introduction of sugar and flour.

But of course, many of them were very high in carbohydrate, and these cultures seemed in fine health as well.

Carbohydrate reduction leads to a normalization of appetite:

It mayalso be that the mere lowering of serum insulin concentrations,as is seen with LCDs, may lead to a reduction in appetite. Insupport of this idea, several studies have found that insulinincreases food intake, that foods with high insulin responsesare less satiating, and that suppression of insulin with octreotideleads to weight loss (27-29).

I can’t believe it; all that fat isn’t going to clog my arteries??

Several outpatient diet studies have shown reductionsin CVD risk factors after an 8–12-wk LCKD, during weightloss, and during weight maintenance (21, 60-62).

The last paragraph is a zinger:

We emphasize that strategies based on carbohydrate restrictionhave continued to fulfill their promise in relation to weightloss and that, contrary to early concerns, they have a generallybeneficial effect on most markers of CVD, even in the absenceof weight loss. In combination with the intuitive and establishedefficacy in relation to glycemic control in diabetics, someform of LCD may be the preferred choice for weight reductionas well as for general health.