Talk:Low-carb diet
ɓ
Contents |
[edit] Ketosis -- this is wrong
Here is a good example of the kind of edit I think is needed:
- Ketosis, while safe in the short term, carries serious risks in any long term situation --http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/180858.php --
The problem is first, no where in the linked article does it support the statement that ketosis "carries serious risks in any long term situation." In fact, it simply recognizes there is some doubt. Second, this is an old article (2008), but to this date there has not been one single study showing that ketosis "carries serious risks" or that LCHF diets do, for that matter. I suggest the following:
- Ketosis is safe in the short term and there is no evidence it causes harm in the long term.
I think that's reasonable.--CarbShark (talk) 17:26, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
- You didn't read the article, but nice try.--Token Conservative (talk) 17:44, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
- Not only did I read the article, but I also followed the links in the article, read those and looked up claims on pub-med. (did you?) If this article is considered support for the claim that ketosis is bad, or carries risks, then that's a symptom of a bigger problem.
- This graph: "Long-term low-carb diets have been associated with a higher risk of osteoporosis, especially among postmenopausal women" is odd because if you read the page its linked to it does not mention low carb diets or ketosis at all. (This is one reason why I don't rely on secondary sources.) Instead, the page reference high protein diets, and even then, more recent studies found those diets to be preventative of osteoperosis.
- Protein intake and bone health. [Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 2011] - PubMed - NCBI
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22139564
- There is no evidence that high protein intake per se would be detrimental for bone mass and strength. Nevertheless, it appears reasonable to avoid very high protein diets (i. e. more than 2.0 g/kg body weight/day) when associated with low calcium intake (i. e. less than 600 mg/day). In the elderly, taking into account the attenuated anabolic response to dietary protein with ageing, there is concern that the current dietary protein recommended allowance (RDA), as set at 0.8 g/kg body weight/day, might be too low for the primary and secondary prevention of fragility fractures.
- Acid diet (high-meat protein)... [Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2010] - PubMed - NCBI
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20717017
- On the basis of recent findings, consuming protein (including that from meat) higher than current Recommended Dietary Allowance for protein is beneficial to calcium utilization and bone health, especially in the elderly. A high-protein diet with adequate calcium and fruits and vegetables is important for bone health and osteoporosis prevention.
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20717017
- [Ketogenic diets: additional benefits to ... [Arch Latinoam Nutr. 2008] - PubMed - NCBI
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19368291
- It is also necessary to emphasize that as well as the weight loss, ketogenic diets are healthier because they promote a non-atherogenic lipid profile, lower blood pressure and diminish resistance to insulin with an improvement in blood levels of glucose and insulin. Such diets also have antineoplastic benefits, do not alter renal or liver functions, do not produce metabolic acidosis by Ketosis, have many neurological benefits in central nervous system, do not produce osteoporosis and could increase the perfomance in aerobic sports.
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19368291
- --CarbShark (talk) 18:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Macronutrients, this is nonsense
This first section ("Carb, protein, fat") is nonsense. This is one area where I think that experts on both sides of this argument pretty much agree on what macronutrients are and what they do, but what's here is just flat out wrong.
“Finally is carbohydrates, protein, and fat. These are macronutrients and they give your body calories. ... Each one plays a different role in your body ...The short version is that fat is used by your body to maintain things like your skin, hair, fingernails and teeth, protein is used to build and maintain muscles, some internal organs, and the like. Normally, carbohydrates are used to fuel everything else, especially your nervous system and your brain. ... There's a huge and technical listing of things that each one does and how they function, and their relation to each other and every other element of your nutrition, especially when you start talking about the different kinds of carbohydrates, protein, and fat. ...Remember: There are actually different kinds of each of these, each one does a different, more specific thing in your body.”
This is all nonsense. Fat provides energy in the form of free fatty acids or ketone bodies. Muscles, organs and the brain can all directly metabolize free fatty acids and/or ketone bodies. Plus, if you buy the calorie is a calorie model, then this is even more absurd. Fat and carbs provide energy that can be metabolized or stored. Protein can also provide energy, or the amino acids can be used for nutrition.
Also the information provided in references is also wrong:
“Even though it isn't a macronutrient, alcohol also gives calories, specifically 7 per gram of alcohol”
Alcohol is carbohydrate.
Also I question the quality of this reference "The Fighters Body, Loren W. Christensen and Wim Demeere" Seriously? A martial arts book as a source for the science of diet and nutrition?
I am going to replace this section with well referenced fact based description that experts on both sides can agree on.--CarbShark (talk) 23:52, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Recommended macronutrient distribution ranges
Hey all. Great work on the article so far ! One particular statement that concerns me is the following
- It's also worth noting that medical professionals recommend a diet of 30% fat (preferably essential fatty acids like from fish and nuts), 30-40% protein and 30-40% from carbohydrates. A diet that deprived of carbohydrates will not end well for the dieter
under the section 'The basic low-carb theory', reference given to a Livestrong article.
These provided ranges for carbohydrate and protein are actually significantly outside the macronutrient recommendations of mainstream health authorities (as well as those given in the article the original author referenced) -- notably, the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range (AMDR), published by the Institute of Medicine and utilized by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (the licensing organization for registered dieticians [RDs]) and the recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO). Additionally fat intake is usually expressed as a range and not a single percentage target of 30 % (perhaps the original author meant this as an upper limit of intake, as this would be in line with recommendations from the aforementioned authorities, but ideally should be explicitly listed as an upper limit or preferably as a range of acceptable intake):
- The AMDR is recognized by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics as tool for RDs to plan diets for members of the general population, particularly their energy distribution with regards to macronutrients
- IOM's DRI for macronutrients -- the AMDR. Specifically 45 to 65 % of the diet from carbohydrate, 20 to 35 % from fat and 10 to 35 % from protein
The recommendations of the World Health Organization are roughly similar to those of the IOM:
- Fifty percent of dietary energy minimum derived from carbohydrate
- Twenty to thirty percent of dietary energy from fatty acids for sedentary to moderately active individuals, up to 35 percent for very active individuals
- Protein requirements as a distribution range from the WHO appear to be quite difficult to find, but are available as recommendation of 0.83 g protein / kg of body weight, with a note that intakes of up to twice the recommendation are likely to be safe. It should be noted that the recommendations are based on proteins with a PDCAAS score of 1.0, which includes most animal sources of protein and those plant sources that are either higher-quality or complete (e g, soy, quinoa, amaranth). 0.83 to 1.66 g protein amounts to 3.32 to 6.64 kcal, which for a 2000-kcal diet would be something like .166 to .332 % of the diet from protein per kg of bodyweight. As a quick and dirty example, a 65 kg adult eating said 2000 kcal diet could consume between 10.79 and 21.58 % of his or her dietary energy from protein while adhering to this recommendation. It is a bit problematic, in my opinion, however to distill the WHO protein recommendation into a distribution range as a percentage of dietary energy derived from protein in this manner, as human energy needs generally increase with height and lean body mass and will therefore vary between individuals, making it unreasonable to use an assumed diet of 2000 kcal to yield a general percentage distribution for the entire population. A more-complex formula of something like (332 to 664 / total energy intake in kcal) * bodyweight in kg I suppose could be placed in the article, but I think just placing the 0.83 to 1.66 g protein per kg bodyweight recommendation from the table and perhaps a couple of examples demonstrating how low their recommendation is in comparison to normal intakes along with a statement, such as 'the WHO's recommendation appears to be within the lower part of the range recommended in the AMDR' would be a lot more approachable and reader-friendly.
Overall, I think we should make changes to this part of the article to bring our description of the recommended intakes by medical professionals in line with actual recommendations from health authorities. Additionally, I think it might be a good idea to add a note or sentence that dietary recommendations are occasionally made that would fall outside of this range, such as the common recommendation from the American Diabetes Association to keep net carbs between 45 and 60 per meal for persons with diabetes (yielding a ratio with a higher percentage from fat and proteins and lower in carbohydrate), ketogenic diets used for management of epilepsy (carbs and protein both at absolute minimal levels to maintain ketosis, the latter to discourage gluconeogenesis via deamination) or fats in the diet limited to 10 % of total dietary energy, used experimentally in therapeutic plant based-diets for treatment of heart disease (e g, in studies carried out by Drs Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn) but that diets such as these that fall significantly outside of the recommendations for the general population are best attempted only under supervision of a dietetics professional (RD) or physician.
I'd be happy to make the changes myself, but first wanted to get others' opinions and/or approvals before doing so.
Thanks for reading, everyone ^^, --Ashenst8 (talk) 20:49, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Why does it seem to work? section
"So, why do low carb diets seem to work? Well its because if you follow them, you eat less calories. Simple as that. When you cut carbs you cut out of your diet breads and grains which tend to have a very high calorie density, basically they have a lot of calories for how much stuff is in them."
This is bullshit, as in clinical trials the carbohydrates are replaced and not omitted (and with very good results).
- Cite what you take to be the most relevant trial or two in regard to your claim. Shirtsleeves (talk) 17:03, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
This is billshot. I don't like the way this section is written. Not only the quality of the writing (grammar) is subpar, it's vague, hard to read, and just sounds overall really dumb and uninformed. The section thinks that breads and grains have high calorie density, so it's not fulfilling, but fiber is technically a carbohydrate. Are you telling me that quinoa, a grain, is not fulfilling? The section fails to distinguish "complex carbohydrates" and "simple carbohydrates", so I'd support a rewrite, if not outright removal. LEFTYGREENMARIO 01:25, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
[edit] Need for critical thinking
I just stopped by this article. It surprised me as quite lacking in critical thinking and some basic facts of human nutrition. I don't think I want to edit it because it looks like you already have a nice edit war going on :-) For example, there is a claim that carbohydrates are an essential nutrient that body needs. This is not the case; while glucose has an essential role in the body, protein and fat can be metabolized to glucose. This is how, for example, the Inuit survived, doing quite well before the modern western-pattern diet brought them type-2 diabetes, etc. Also, please remember that dietary guidelines (e.g., Canada Food Guide) are based on low-quality observational evidence, which requires thorough reading, critical thinking, and cautious interpretation; something the average health professional does quite poorly. Let me give you an example: there are plenty of epidemiological studies linking moderate consumption of alcohol to better cardiac outcomes (e.g, fewer heart attacks). This is commonly misinterpreted as 'alcohol prevents heart disease'. In fact the heart disease outcome is not caused by the exposure (alcohol/no alcohol) but by a 'healthy cohort effect': drinkers tend to be younger, and people who don't drink are often older, with more pre-existing illnesses (i.e., many medications don't combine well with alcohol). Adjusting for baseline differences in age & illness obliterates the apparent positive effect of alcohol. Dietary guidelines say 'use skim milk' and 'reduce dietary cholesterol' when in fact there is little to no evidence that full-fat dairy is unhealthful, and no relationship between dietary cholesterol and plasma cholesterol. I could go on. The fact is that you absolutely cannot repeat nutritional mantras (carbs good! fat bad!) or rely on 'expert opinion'. So when a dietary guideline says 'eat 45%-65% carbs', you can't just *believe that*. What's the evidence? What comparison is the interpretation based on? How were the studies controlled? I am not aware of any evidence whatsoever that you need that many carbs. Additionally, the evidence supporting the health benefits of grains are based on comparisons of whole vs. white grains. You'd need a 'no grain' control group to demonstrate that grains are an essential part of the diet. Thanks, Tanya. — Unsigned, by: 24.138.53.226 / talk / contribs 18:17, 6 December 2014
[edit] Some comments
I do not think that this article is written well enough. It makes too many assumptions without good science to back them up. Just a few points.
First: many human populations in history have lived as hunters in regions where carbohydrates are seasonally or year-round unavailable. This is in direct contradiction to the "Your body needs carbohydrates to survive" claim. It does not, at least not *dietary* carbohydrates (technically, body will internally produce some glycogen from your food, as mentioned in the article). I do not think that you can find any scientific research making the claim that periodic or even total absence of carbohydrates from diet will shorten your life span etc. Too many healthy hunters in Siberia, the Arctic etc. seem to thrive quite well and live long. On the other hand, without fat or protein you will deteriorate and die in matter of months, no matter what else you eat. *These* are essential macronutrients.
Second: it isn't a good idea to argue about energy use of ancient hunters and take modern sports as an anology. Modern cycling or long distance running is very different from hunting. Actual hunters do not run for miles and miles and miles on smooth surface. The terrain is usually too rough to do that. The traditional hunters mix walking, waiting and very fast bursts of running. From my personal experience as a long-distance hiker, which is, too, a mix of "walk fast - walk slower - sit down for a while - run a bit" activities, my body does perform very well in such conditions without carbs, actually even better than with them (the level of subjective energy and wellness does not fluctuate as much if you do not swing your insulin levels). Of course, your experience may be different. It might be true that without carbs, reaching record speeds or durations is impossible. But that is not a typical human activity.
Third: while there is significant evidence that trans fats are dangerous for your health, there is no such evidence for saturated fats. The hypothesis about dangers of saturated fats has come into existence as a pure speculation, when it was observed that statins tend to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease at the same time. It was speculated then that saturated fats, which increase cholesterol levels, will have the opposite effect. But AFAIK this hasn't been proven at all, despite some efforts. (Note that mammalian fat tissue consists of some 60 per cent of saturated fat. That includes humans. If saturated fat increases risks of diseases, it means that mammal physiology is, under normal conditions, willing to store a lot of harmful stuff in body cells. While this is certainly possible, it is definitely source of some doubt for me.)
Fourth: human physiology is comparable to the physiology of chimps, but that does not mean that we could eat the same things that chimps do. Modern humans have lived in temperate and subarctic regions for ages, and these regions do not have as much fruit available as the tropical forest does. There probably was some adaptation in the meantime. I am not saying with certainty that there was, but that the argument from comparison with chimps is weak. We are a few million years apart & we have lived in different conditions, so there may be very significant nutritional differences.— Unsigned, by: 82.113.52.218 / talk / contribs
- This is a buncha "paleo" pseudoscience. Making up a human history, and then asserting that fictitious history is "natural" and thus healthy. Cite your facts. We do. ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 15:51, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
- So what exactly do you dispute? That ancient humans were mostly hunters and gatherers? That there is shortage of carbs in winter in the temperate and subarctic regions? That frequency of modern diseases such as obesity, diabetes and most cancers in hunter-gatherer populations, both historic and contemporary, is very low, bordering on nonexistent? I am willing to discuss all of these, but I cannot accept your claim that I have somehow "made up" fictitious human history. Please point out any concrete points that you disagree with or that you deem fictitional. — Unsigned, by: 82.113.52.218 / talk / contribs 10:21, 18 March 2015
- I don't have any expertise on this topic or sources to cite, but are you sure they didn't suffer from obesity and diabetes at the time because there wasn't enough food for that to occur and that cancers didn't occur because they died of things like infectious diseases and being mauled by bears before they could have the chance to catch them? TheSocktor (talk) 11:06, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
- Yes and no. You make very good points, which, nonetheless, are not in contradiction with my points. Death patterns in hunter-gatherer societies have been studied by anthropologists. Incidence of violent death in pre-modern hunter societies is very high; actually, many more deaths are due to tribal warfare than to accidents with animals (plus many children die in tender age). Yet, even in contemporary tribal societies, once you reach about 20 years of age, you have reasonable chance to live to be 60 and there are people living into their 70s, so it isn't as if "no one had time to develop this and that". There have been medical studies of contemporary hunter-gatherers since the late 19th century. Their typical diseases seem to be osteoarthritis and parasitic/fungal infections. Cancer and metabolic-syndrome-like diseases (high blood pressure, diabetes of the 2nd type etc.) are extremely rare to nonexistent among them, with individual cases making it into scientific articles. As for the ancients, we cannot detect diabetes or high blood pressure from bones, but we can detect cancer and bones with cancer lesions are extremely rare in burials of ancient hunter-gatherer people as well. Early agricultural people, such as Ancient Egyptians, left skeletons which are decidedly less healthy; the change in the fossil record is very abrupt and often "visible to the naked eye".
- I noticed that I forgot to address your point with the quantity of food. Hunter-gatherers are/were rarely if ever visibly malnourished. Their dietary habits were very different from ours, certainly. We do not really know today how obesity develops, the model with calories in and calories out seems to be too simplistic (not least because both "in" and "out" are extremely hard to measure in practice). It is worth observing that in modern societies, you will find "Gaussian" distribution of leanness/chubbiness; unless the whole community is severely malnourished (such as the inhabitants of besieged Sarajevo were, or Ukrainians in the Holodomor), a certain percentage of the population on the right side of the curve will be fat, even in comparatively poor societies, such as rural India. AFAIK this wasn't the case with hunter-gatherer societies.
- That's dumb as hell. Medieval European peasants whose diets consisted almost exclusively of cereal grains(i.e. carbs) also were very rarely obese. This is bad reasoning. ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 13:48, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
- I do not think that quality of any argument is supported by exclamations such as "dumb as hell". To the merit of the point. What was the rate of obesity in medieval European peasants? Is that even known? (An anecdote to the contrary: in my family, the great-grandparents around 1900 were rather poor peasants in Eastern Europe, whose diet wasn't that much different from that of medieval peasants. Mostly wheat. And yet the rare tinted photographs show that most of the men had "beer bellies" in their middle age. Not morbidly obese, but visibly overweight, and it was visceral fat.)
- You claim there's no science to back up the article but have cited no sources yourself to support your claims. Nobody here is under obligation to refute any of your claims until you cite legitimate sources to back yourself up. Trick (talk) 16:06, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
- (EC)I see very little chance of there being a quality argument when you're making vague and inaccurate statements about natural human diets as they relate to the modern obesity epidemic. You've got a weak-ass argument and if you want to be taken seriously and get a "real argument", you'd better bring some goddamn data to the table. ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 16:08, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
- Fair enough. Let us start somewhere then. I recently made a claim that hunter gatherers do not suffer from obesity. I will look around for citations to support that claim. You made the claim that medieval European peasants did not suffer from obesity either. Will you look around for citations to back up that claim as well? If so, let us go on a citation hunt. I believe that this is a fair challenge.
- I do not think that quality of any argument is supported by exclamations such as "dumb as hell". To the merit of the point. What was the rate of obesity in medieval European peasants? Is that even known? (An anecdote to the contrary: in my family, the great-grandparents around 1900 were rather poor peasants in Eastern Europe, whose diet wasn't that much different from that of medieval peasants. Mostly wheat. And yet the rare tinted photographs show that most of the men had "beer bellies" in their middle age. Not morbidly obese, but visibly overweight, and it was visceral fat.)
- I don't have any expertise on this topic or sources to cite, but are you sure they didn't suffer from obesity and diabetes at the time because there wasn't enough food for that to occur and that cancers didn't occur because they died of things like infectious diseases and being mauled by bears before they could have the chance to catch them? TheSocktor (talk) 11:06, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
- So what exactly do you dispute? That ancient humans were mostly hunters and gatherers? That there is shortage of carbs in winter in the temperate and subarctic regions? That frequency of modern diseases such as obesity, diabetes and most cancers in hunter-gatherer populations, both historic and contemporary, is very low, bordering on nonexistent? I am willing to discuss all of these, but I cannot accept your claim that I have somehow "made up" fictitious human history. Please point out any concrete points that you disagree with or that you deem fictitional. — Unsigned, by: 82.113.52.218 / talk / contribs 10:21, 18 March 2015