The Low Carb Diet Is An Example Of Economics
Low Carb Diets – A consideration of health or economics?
September 2, 2016 | Atkins Diet, Avoiding sugar, Carbohydrates, Ketogenic diet, Low Carbohydrate, Paleo Diet
The Atkins diet and more recently Paleo (or Paleolithic) diet, are probably two of the best known low carbohydrate diets globally. Certainly the Atkins diet was revered by thousands, and many of them high profile celebrities, as being the ultimate and sustainable weight-loss diet that showed almost immediate results. The re-written and recently published 'New Atkins New You', makes similar claims and evidence suggests that there is much truth in the fact that 'going very low carb' does indeed mean you are likely to lose weight. That is, at least if you were eating significant amounts of carbohydrates previously and turning much of these into stored fats. Ie if you were over weight to start with.
But are the health claims true, or is this another diet that focuses on weight loss and creating 'the body beautiful', without taking in to consideration any long term health issues?
One major 'fly in the ointment' about the Atkins diet, which may have lead to some of the criticism of this dietary approach, is the rumour that was corroborated in 2007 by 'serious' media such as Newsweek, suggesting that Dr Atkins died of his own diet. Newsweek withdrew this claim later, with an apology. But the rumours that he did have a heart condition remain in circulation even though his death certificate states: "blunt impact injury of head with epidural hematoma".
Increased consumption of carbohydrates in the USA. Source: Dr J Volek PhD presentation at 2016 Metabolic Therapeutics Conference
The Paleo diet, that contains only foods that our predecessors from Paleolithic times would apparently have eaten, prior to agriculture, is also naturally a relatively low carbohydrate diet. It contains only natural foods in their natural state. So, there are no processed breads or cereals etc, normally no grains or legumes, and few fruits and nuts. This diet also does not tend to include dairy products or vegetable oils, so whilst it is often 'low carb', it is much more restrictive in nutrients than a simply low carbohydrate, or Atkins type, diet. The rest of this article will therefore only deal with a diet that simply focuses on reducing or cutting out carbohydrates. The extreme version of this, the Ketogenic diet, will be dealt with in a separate article (see below), looking at therapeutic treatments available for diabetes type 2 and metabolic syndrome.
So, turning to science and vast amounts of scientific research and clinical trials, what can we learn about the health benefits and risks of the low carbohydrate diets?
1. The first and most obvious health benefit of cutting down on carbohydrates is the way in which these diets force us to eliminate the foods like sugar, sugary drinks and processed carb-rich foods like cakes, sweets, biscuits, pastries etc that provide no, or at best very limited, nutritional value. In other words, we are cutting out bulk foods, often with additives and unhealthy fats, that only serve to make us fatter, without adding any nutritional value. So, this is a clear and simple overall health benefit of going low(er) carb.
2. The second obvious benefit is that by cutting out these foods as well as their close relatives; ie the refined carbohydrate rich processed foods such as white pasta and white bread, we also reduce the well known 'addictive' effect of these refined carbohydrates on our brains. The result is basically that we reduce our risk of the addictive behaviour of 'the more I eat of it, the more I want it'.
3. Because carbohydrates can only be stored in our bodies in very limited amounts as a source of energy (in the form of glycogen), any excess we eat has to be converted by the body in to fat. This is the same with protein incidentally. (Ie if we eat more protein than our body has use for, it has to be converted to fat). So, by reducing our carbohydrate consumption, we are likely to use up a bigger proportion of the carbs we actually eat, and convert these to energy or store them as ready energy. As a result, we have less left over that needs to be stored as fat. (NOTE: The same reasoning does not apply for protein – so be careful not to draw the same conclusion. I will discuss this in a later article but if you want to know more now – please contact me before staring to cut down on your protein consumption) In the meantime, assuming we are not about to starve or have no access to food for a long time, by limiting our carbohydrate intake so that we only get sufficient to refill the (glycogen) energy stores in our muscles and liver, people with more than enough fat coverage will clearly be healthier, because they no longer eat the excess carbohydrates that will simply be converted to more fat.
4. If we eat fewer carbohydrates and eat them less frequently, we also give our bodies a break from producing insulin, which is the hormone needed to help our cells make use of both carbohydrates and proteins. Many of us are very familiar with the expression 'sugar spikes' or 'mood swings' which occur when we lurch from the immediate 'high' after having eaten lots of sweet foods, to the depressed or 'low' state, with a notable lack of energy, and cravings for more sweet foods or pasta / bread / cakes etc, which is needed to 'soak up' the excess insulin that our bodies have produced. So, by avoiding these sugar and insulin 'spikes' by reducing carbohydrate consumption, we not only give our hard working pancreas less strain by requiring less frequent insulin production, but we also reduce these mood swings and hunger cravings, which in health and well-being terms is a very good thing.
But there is an important and very closely related point to limiting the amount and frequency the body needs to produce insulin. That is that when insulin is present in our blood, our bodies cannot use fat for energy. There is a wonderful 'flip side' to this. Namely that if we eat less carbohydrates, and have less insulin charging about in our bodies trying to get rid of it, then our bodies are able to use the fat we have stored and burn this for energy instead. BINGO! That is primarily why low carb diets work in weight loss programmes: The lack of carbohydrates, means less insulin is present and we can finally access and use all that lovely fat we have stored around our middles for a rainy day when we might need it. And using up excess fat is certainly healthy if it means we reduce any excess weight we are carrying around the middle, and most importantly around our organs.
5. Finally; large numbers of studies, and the so called meta analysis that group these studies together, provide very strong evidence that the huge increase in refined carbohydrate consumption in the world over the past decades, correlates with an alarming increase in metabolic disorders and obesity. And both of these, in turn lead to greater risk of cardiovascular disease. This too suggests that being restrictive with our carbohydrate intake is likely to reduce our chances of becoming and remaining obese or overweight. And avoiding obesity and / or metabolic syndrome, including diabetes type 2, and the resultant increased risks of heart disease are clearly long term health benefits as well.
The next question we need to address is: What are the health risks with a reduced carbohydrate diet? Or specifically; do we compromise the nutrition we get from our foods and risk limiting certain nutrients by cutting down on carbohydrates?
The answer to this is 'no', if we make sure our diets are diverse and contain naturally occurring essential food groups. To understand this, we need first to recognise that the only purpose of eating pure carbohydrate (sugars and starches) is to provide energy and fibre. So, if we can make sure we get sufficient energy and fibre elsewhere, we will not lack health promoting foods by cutting down on carbohydrate dense foods.
What does this mean in practice?
Picture from ketosource.co.uk
This means eating a diet that includes plenty of richly colourful vegetables to provide essential antioxidant vitamins, minerals and fibre. By choosing a variety of colourful vegetables including reds, greens and yellows, we will get a perfect selection of different vitamins and minerals without having to be highly scientific about it. We also need to get sufficient good fats from for example nuts and seeds, avocados, dairy products, fish and meat, to provide us with the building blocks for our cell structure, our brains and hormones, vital fat soluble vitamins and enough energy to sustain our normal lifestyle. And finally, we absolutely need to get enough, but not too much, good quality protein, ideally from animal sources (eg meat, fish, eggs) or complete or complimentary vegetarian sources, to give us the remaining essential building blocks to grow, maintain and repair all the systems and organs in our bodies.
So, why doesn't everyone recommend going 'low carb'?
That is where we go beyond the subject of nutrition and get involved with the tough subjects of economics and politics, and, dare I say it, primarily the overlap between the two. It is virtually impossible to imagine a world where bakeries and bread counters in supermarkets only sell products made with whole grains, produced organically, without pesticides. Or, that the isles in these same shops, that are currently full of cakes, biscuits, sweets and treats, would be empty. That there would be no more sugar in tomato ketchup, breakfast cereals or ice cream. The idea that Italian restaurants would stop selling 'normal' white pasta and pizza…… The concept that dinner plates or rice bowels around the world would no longer contain white polished rice as the bulk of the meal.
Simply put, we cannot feed our world today on low carb foods. And the industries supporting the status quo are simply too powerful and too well supported by our desires for carb-rich, cheap foods, to do anything other than keep providing us with the basis for high carb diets.
Indeed, it is the lucky few who can really make the choice to go low carb, because this is to a great degree a question of economics and priorities. For those of us fortunate enough to live in a society where food choices are so plentiful, my recommendation is that we spend our money first and foremost on healthy nutrient dense foods, because, in basic terms, without our health we have nothing. Health comes before ALL else. If we can afford it, the obvious decision is to prioritise making healthier choices for ourselves and our families. This means increasing our creative use of non-processed natural foods in their natural state, whilst reducing our dependancy on simple and processed carbohydrates that feed ours and our children's fat cells…..and worse; can be a major contributor to inflammation and serious disease.
For more information, detailed references and sources for the above, or for help with finding a low(er) carbohydrate diet that suits your needs, and that is affordable for you, please contact me.
Please also feel free to comment and share your thoughts about this article in the below comments box. We all learn by sharing experiences and asking questions.
In a future article I will deal with high fat and ketogenic diets for therapeutic treatment and enhanced sports performance. For advanced discussions about this subject, please contact me.
The Low Carb Diet Is An Example Of Economics
Source: https://www.huntsland-nutrition.com/low-carb-diets-bare-facts/
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