Low Carbohydrate Diets and Cardiovascular Disease by Jerry Brainum 9/23

 

Low carbohydrate diets are among the most popular diets for promoting body fat loss. Low-carb diets come in two main varieties. The first is the more stringent ketogenic diet that features a daily carb intake of no more than 20 grams of carbohydrates. This diet was first used medically to treat epilepsy in children and is still used for that purpose today. The other, more common type of low-carb diet involves a restriction of carb intake that varies among individuals. But the daily carb intake can range from 50 to 100 grams of carbohydrates. Other diets that are often called "low carb" diets are not true low carb diets because they contain more than 150 grams of carbs, which is not a low carb diet. Indeed, many studies that compared "low carb" diets to low-fat diets featured an intake of 150 grams of more carbohydrates in the low-carb diet, which is not a true low-carb diet and would not be expected to provide the benefits associated with true low-carb diets.

The basic premise of all types of low-carb diets is that controlling the hormone insulin will open the door to greater usage of stored body fat. This point is controversial because many self-styled experts who hold advanced degrees often claim that insulin is just an innocent bystander in causing obesity. They say that what determines body fat gains is an excess of daily calorie intake in relation to physical activity levels. More simply put, if you consume more calories than you burn through physical activity, the excess calories will be stored as fat. While no one denies the importance of calories in relation to body composition, fat gain is more complicated than portrayed by some people. How else to explain studies that showed people who consumed identical diets with the same total daily calorie intake, but differed only by carbohydrate intake showed vastly different results? These studies showed that the lower-carb diets produced a significantly greater degree of body fat loss despite the consumption of the same number of calories.

Critics of low-carb diets point to the effects of protein or more specifically amino acids on insulin release as proof of their assertion that insulin does not make you fat. And it's true that certain amino acids can provoke an insulin release that is comparable to even simple or rapidly absorbed carbohydrates. Since fat gains never occur in active people who consume high-protein diets, this is said to prove that insulin is an innocent bystander in the fat gain process. The fate of excess protein in those who exercise regularly or are otherwise physically active is oxidation in the liver, with the nitrogen portion of amino acids being converted into urea and excreted from the kidneys. I've yet to see anyone in my over 60 years of bodybuilding and fitness participation who gained body fat from eating even massive . . .