Study: Low-carb diet best for weight, cholesterol

Study: Low-carb diet best for weight, cholesterol on Yahoo! Health:
2008.07.17
"ATLANTA - The Atkins diet may have proved itself after all: A low-carb diet and a Mediterranean-style regimen helped people lose more weight than a traditional low-fat diet in one of the longest and largest studies to compare the dueling weight-loss techniques...A bigger surprise: The low-carb diet improved cholesterol more than the other two. Some critics had predicted the opposite...all three approaches — the low-carb diet, a low-fat diet and a so-called Mediterranean diet — achieved weight loss and improved cholesterol...The study is remarkable not only because it lasted two years, much longer than most, but also because of the huge proportion of people who stuck with the diets — 85 percent...Average weight loss for those in the low-carb group was 10.3 pounds after two years. Those in the Mediterranean diet lost 10 pounds, and those on the low-fat regimen dropped 6.5...But the low-carb approach seemed to trigger the most improvement in several cholesterol measures, including the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL, the "good" cholesterol...The ratio declined by 20 percent in people on the low-carb diet, compared to 16 percent in those on the Mediterranean and 12 percent in low-fat dieters...The new study's results favored the Atkins-like approach less when subgroups such as diabetics and women were examined...Among the 36 diabetics, only those on the Mediterranean diet lowered blood sugar levels. Among the 45 women, those on the Mediterranean diet lost the most weight... "I think these data suggest that men may be much more responsive to a diet in which there are clear limits on what foods can be consumed," such as an Atkins-like diet, said Dr. William Dietz, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention..."

Full article here - at NEJM.

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High-fat Atkins diet damages blood vessels

High-fat Atkins diet damages blood vessels: study on Yahoo! News
2007.11.06
" The high-fat Atkins diet can cause long-term damage to blood vessels, as well as some of the inflammation linked with heart and artery disease...In contrast, low-fat regimens such as the South Beach and Ornish diets lowered cholesterol and appeared to benefit artery function, they said...."It really is the Atkins diet that is the worst," Dr. Michael Miller, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, said in a telephone interview..."The Atkins diet caused the LDL levels to go up by about 7 percent, whereas in the Ornish and South Beach diets ... they went down 7 to 10 percent."..."


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Glycemic index linked with risk of AMD

Link Between Carbohydrate Quality And Vision Loss ScienceDaily 7/13/07 "Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and its associated vision loss may be connected to the quality of carbohydrates an individual consumes...confirmed earlier findings linking dietary glycemic index with the risk of developing AMD..."Our findings suggest that 20 percent of the cases of advanced AMD might have been prevented if those individuals had consumed a diet with a glycemic index below the average for their age and gender,"..."Our results support our hypothesis," says Taylor, "that dietary glycemic index, which has been related to the risk of diabetes, is also associated with the risk and severity of AMD." Taylor speculates that carbohydrates that comprise a high-glycemic-index diet may provide eye tissue"It is possible that the type of damage produced by poor quality carbohydrates on eye tissue is similar in both diabetic eye disease and AMD." ..."

No doubt as the eyes go, so do a variety of organs. Glycemic index and glycemic load appears to get more and more important. More info on both here.

Little doubt that this also holds true for our pets.

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Low-carb diet bad for gut health?

Low-carb diet bad for gut health? NutraIngredients.com 6/19/07 "Eating a low-carbohydrate diet, like the once fashionable Atkins diet, may adversely affect the numbers of certain types of bacteria in the gut of obese men...may also adversely affect the gut bacterial populations that beneficially produce a substance called butyrate, which has been shown to be important for keeping the gut healthy including helping to prevent colorectal cancer..."The changes in faecal butyrate in the present study represent the largest reported in a human dietary trial and provide the strongest evidence to date that butyrate production is largely determined by the content of fermentable carbohydrate in the diet," wrote lead author Sylvia Duncan..."Furthermore, this study has provided clear evidence that the proportions of certain groups of colonic bacteria, as monitored in faecal samples, respond to dietary carbohydrate intake," ...Levels of so-called beneficial bacteria, particularly the bifidobacteria were also detrimentally affected by decreasing carb levels..."

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Atkins diet seems best

Diet study tips scale in favor of Atkins Reuters/Yahoo!News 3/7/07 " study of four popular diets found that women put on the one with the least carbohydrates -- the Atkins plan -- lost at least twice as much weight as those on the others...The research was described as the largest and longest comparison yet done on the four diets. They were Atkins, the lowest in carbohydrates for the four; the Zone diet, also low in carbohydrates and based on a 40:30:30 ratio of carbohydrates to protein to fat; the Lifestyle, Exercise, Attitudes, Relationships and Nutrition (LEARN) diet which follows U.S. government guidelines for low fat but higher carbohydrates; and the Ornish diet, which is very high in carbohydrates but very low in fat...Women assigned to the Atkins group lost an average of 10.4 pounds (4.7 kgs) compared to 5.7 pounds (2.5 kgs) for LEARN, 4.8 pounds (2.1 kgs) for Ornish and 3.5 pounds (1.6 kgs) for Zone...Gardner said the Atkins diet has "a very simple message. Get rid of all refined carbohydrates to lose weight," thus targeting the increasing consumption of refined sugars, such as high-fructose corn syrup...He also said the Atkins diet is best at encouraging people to drink more water, and when people replace sweetened drinks with water, they do not generally eat more food"

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