LOW-CARB DIET BETTER THAN LOW-FAT ONE OVER LONG TERM?
(by Tony Ryanto)
Over a long term period, low-carbohydrate diet turns out to be as effective as low-fat diet at reducing weight. Not only that, it is better for your heart, CBS News quoted an AP report dated Aug. 3, 2010 as saying.
Both diets improved cholesterol levels in a two-year study that involved intensive group counseling but those on the low-carb diet got a bigger boost in getting the so-called good cholesterol or HDL, nearly twice those on the low-fat one.
The low-carb diet scored a 23 percent increase in HDL against 12 percent in low-fat. Also, low-carb diet has performed better at weight loss over a six-month period, according to Gary Foster, director of Temple University’s Center for Obesity Research and Education, who led the federally funded study.
The low-carb boost, he added, is the kind one might get from medicines that improve HDL.
“For a diet, that’s pretty impressive,” Foster said.
The findings, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, are based on a study of 307 adults, two-thirds of them women. Participants were obese but didn’t have cholesterol problems or diabetes.
Half followed a low-carb diet modeled after the Atkins’ plan and half went on a low-calorie, low-fat one. All attended group sessions to help them change bad eating habits, get more active and stick to their diets.
Low-fat diet, promoted by Dean Ornish and Nathan Pritikin, stresses high fat intake and the ingestion of high carbohydrate meals, while the low-carb diet was pushed more prominently by the recently deceased cardiologist Robert Atkins, who died of non cardiac causes, according to About.Com.:Heart Health Center.
Atkins insists on radical avoidance of carbohydrates in favor of fat and protein.
Three papers from the Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial, published in the Feb. 8, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, however, shows that women treated for eight years with a classic low-fat diet achieved no measurable cardiovascular benefits. This has embarrassed the low fat-diet community, and has left them endeavoring to explain these results. No matter how they put it, however, it appears that the “classic” low-fat diet doesn’t do the job it’s supposed to do.
If low fat diet is effective, then why, after 30 years of promotion and massive recruitment of American food production industries to produce low fat versions of a multiplicity of foodstuff, do Americans keep on getting fat?
The question was posed by Dr Robert Atkins and other low-carb mavens.
Answer to the above question is because carbohydrates lead to obesity and because they powerfully stimulate hunger. Consequently, poor, unsuspecting victims of the low-fat diet seek even more carbohydrate.When we consume carbo, especially those that are rapidly absorbed, such as sugar, potatoes, pasta, white rice and anything made from refined flour, we stimulate the secretion of insulin and insulin causes glucose (product of carbo digestion) to be quickly absorbed into tissues for fuel consumption.
But the extra glucose that are not immediately needed for fuel, are quickly converted to and stored as fat!
According to Dr Ekky M. Rahardja, M.S., clinical nutritionist at Royal Taruma Hospital, Jl. Daan Mogot, Jakarta, this is because insulin has a powerful capacity to store fat from glucose by activating fatty acid synthase, a fat builder enzyme.
Once the glucose levels drop, the insulin level likewise falls and nothing promotes hunger more than a high carbohydrate meal followed by a rapid spike and a rapid drop in insulin levels. So, within 2 to 4 hours, we suddenly crave more carbohydrate.
And the cycle keeps on repeating, again and again, i.e. storing fat, getting hungry and looking out for more carbo. While we stick to a low fat diet, we get fat and as our cholesterol levels go up, we might eventually die.
By avoiding carbo, people avoid a spike in insulin levels. And by keeping low levels of insulin, one will no longer store fat but instead burn it.
Our metabolism actually transforms, so that we primarily use our fat stores for fuel instead of ingested glucose – the fat literally melts away.
Fewer scientific studies have been conducted with low-carb diets than with low-fat ones. This is largely because of the incredible prejudice against low carb diets that has grown within the medical community over the past 30 years.
Early results from these low carb diet studies have been surprisingly positive. Not only have low carb diets been shown to be effective weight loss vehicles but the diets can actually improve cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
Serious doctors are finally starting to wonder if there’s actually something useful there.
About Com. Turns out to be in favour of low-carb diet when it says that much more data will be forthcoming within the next few years. Unfortunately, Dr Atkins’ untimely demise occurred just as his 30-year-old quest was about to bear fruit.
In spite of differences between the two diets, there are in fact a lot of similarities between them.
Both sides cannot deny it. If a person takes in more calories, whether in the form of carbohydrates or fats, he or she will gain weight.
This means that eating lots of low fat food or low carb foods will definitely make you fat.
Dr Atkins’ claim that someone on a low-carb diet does not need to count calories is not exactly correct.
Yet in many cases what he claims seems true because eating fat quenches your appetite, whereas consuming carbohydrates sharpen your appetite.
In other words, even a diet high in fat can amount to fewer calories.
Only recently, proponents of low carb diet have come to notice that certain foods, mostly vegetables and fruits, are relatively high in carbohydrates. Such foods not only supply the needed vitamins that a person on a strict no carb diet misses but also give him or her roughage that might prevent constipation and help certain types of cancer.
Also, in recent years, advocates of low fat diet have admitted that not all fats and trans-fats are all bad. Some, like omega-3 and other varieties of fats found in fish, nuts, olives and avocados, are good. That’s why low-fat dieters are recommended to take in up to 30% of the right kinds of fats.
Radical low-fat dieters put strict limits on rapidly absorbed carbohydrates that could stimulate rapid rises and falls of insulin levels.
And these rapid carbohydrates, namely bread, potatoes, rice and pasta, are likewise most abhorred by the low-carb advocates.
So if we take the middle road because we don’t want to side with either the low fat or low carb dieters, what we should do are these four:
1.Avoid simple carbohydrates that lead to rapid rises and falls of insulin levels, i.e. pasta, potatoes, rice and and products made from refined flour.
2.Eat more vegetables and fruits that supply essential vitamins and roughage without stimulating rapid rises and falls of insulin levels.
3.Eat foods that give you good fats, such as fish, nuts, olives and avocados.
4.Avoid processed foods of any type that contain trans-fats, described as the worst kind of fat for men.
Summing up and making it easy for everyone irrespective of those on low-carb or low-fat diets, Dr Rahardja said that whatever the debate, a well balanced low calorie diet, including sufficient regular daily fat burning exercise, is the best option because this will guarantee that we will not be overweight, let alone obese. In short, we should change our bad eating and other habits into one that leads to a healthy lifestyle.
