Talk:Low-carb diet

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Your body needs carbohydrates to survive[edit]

I knew about proteins and fats but it's the first time I read this and I really doubt that is true, any peer reviewed data to support this claim?— Unsigned, by: 24.203.13.24 / talk / contribs

You get some carbs from meat (DNA is part sugar and ~1% of muscle is glycogen), so it's more or less impossible to not have any carbs at all in your diet. It's not something that's been extensively studied, since it would require quite a bit of unethical research to determine, especially when we can already determine that very low carb diets and especially those without dietary fiber are unhealthy. CorruptUser (talk) 21:24, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

You get very little carbs from meat. DNA is irrelevant. But, when your carbs are low your liver makes as much glucose as you need via neo-glucogenesis.

This has been extensively studied, in individuals, populations and RCTs. Low Carb High Fat diets have never been found to be unhealthy, but are actually healthier than high carb diets.CarbShark (talk) 04:11, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Muscle meat glycogen is depleted on slaughter through rigor mortis. 4f14-5d4-6s2 (talk) 11:50, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

"Low Carb High Fat diets have never been found to be unhealthy, but are actually healthier than high carb diets", a dishonest statement:

The study — which analyzed the results of almost 25,000 participants of the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 to 2010 — found that people who consumed the least carbohydrates were at higher risk of premature death, including from coronary heart disease, stroke and cancer.

“Low carbohydrate diets might be useful in the short term to lose weight, lower blood pressure, and improve blood glucose control, but our study suggests that in the long-term they are linked with an increased risk of death,” Maciej Banach, a professor at the Medical University of Lodz, Poland and the paper’s lead author, said in a statement. Eating carbs might save your life

Dietary carbohydrate intake and mortality: a prospective cohort study and meta-analysis

Both high and low percentages of carbohydrate diets were associated with increased mortality, with minimal risk observed at 50–55% carbohydrate intake. Low carbohydrate dietary patterns favouring animal-derived protein and fat sources, from sources such as lamb, beef, pork, and chicken, were associated with higher mortality, whereas those that favoured plant-derived protein and fat intake, from sources such as vegetables, nuts, peanut butter, and whole-grain breads, were associated with lower mortality, suggesting that the source of food notably modifies the association between carbohydrate intake and mortality.

John66 (talk) 09:59, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Does it work?[edit]

Some big problems with this section. First of all we have an appeal to ancient wisdom fallacy

Early humans (in the Paleolithic period) were generally agreed to be long distance runners, who would chase animals till they died of exhaustion, or became paralyzed by heat stroke and could not run or fight when caught up with by their hunters. Humans are one of the few species that are able to run for long distances at close to maximum speed, and we used this to chase prey animals 15-20 miles until we could just club them to death. This is, first of all, not a method of hunting that lends itself to a high protein diet.

This paragraph actually seems at first to be promoting the Paleo diet, which is debunked in another article. Just because our ancestors did something, does not make it right, and then…

Human physiology is quite comparable to that of our wild primatecousins. With this in mind, looking at what chimps, for example, are eating and what we are eating, there appears a strong discord. While chimps get almost all of their calories from fruits and leaves (carbs) we tend to eat only half of our calories from carbs.

Wait, what? We’re now taking the appeal to ancient wisdom as far back as different genus because we shared a common ancestor around six million odd years ago? Seriously?

Furthermore, since chimps obviously are not designed to run a marathon before clubbing a gazelle to death as we allegedly are [citation needed], why would we share a common optimum diet?

But wait, I’m still confused. If we have evolved to run a marathon to club a gazelle to death and then eat it, then isn’t this an argument for and not against a low carb diet? I mean gazelles aren’t really a very good source of carbs, being mostly protein and fat.

Saying that we have evolved specifically to obtain a low carb food source, and then saying that low carb foods do not lend themselves to the acquisition of low carb food is obviously absurd.

Low-carb diets do actually work for weight-loss in the short-term, but they are, in fact, kind of dangerous. But, they are still very popular despite their apparent dangers. Why is this? Well, weight loss all comes down to calorie counting. Basically, one pound of body fat is about 3,500 calories. If one wants to lose that weight, one needs to burn 3,500 calories more than one consumes. A safe amount of weight loss is 1-2 pounds a week, so if you use 500 calories a day more than you consume, you will lose one pound by the end of the week. Some people like to claim that calorie counting does not work, but a lot of doctors seem to disagree, thinking either that low carb is not a good idea or that calorie cutting is.

Calorie counting and the calories in vs calories out equation is basic thermodynamics. The number of doctors that “seem” to either agree or disagree is irrelevant.

So, low carb diets seem to work because you eat fewer calories.

Low carb diets don’t “seem” to work because you eat fewer calories. That is how and why they work because

When you cut carbs, you cut breads and grains (and in extreme cases, fruits and vegetables), which may seem to be a quick way to dodge fast-burning calories. Likewise, the foods that are high in fat and protein tend to be very filling because fat and protein digest slowly in the stomach.

Although again, it doesn’t “seem” to be a way to dodge calories, it does indeed dodge calories and does indeed replace them with foods that are more satiating, hence lower overall calorie consumption and is thus an effective weight loss strategy, even if the long term health impacts remain controversial.

Can we just replace this section with one that says that low carb diets work because protein and fat are more satiating, and therefore people tend to consume fewer calories overall?

Jonewer (talk) 13:45, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Unexplained removal[edit]

I added a paper [3] which analysed the health records of nearly 14,000 people spanning more than two decades, the researchers found that those on Low carbohydrate diets were at an increased risk of incident AFib. There was no explanation to why this content was removed. I often use Wikipedia so I am not a newbie to editing Wikis but this is my first edit here and I am not impressed to why good material is removed for no reason and marked up as a minor edit. DietResearcher (talk) 15:47, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

@Spud is the one who removed your edit. I don't know enough to do anything. Vee (talk) 15:48, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
Shit, pinged the wrong person. Sorry. Vee (talk) 15:49, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
@DietResearcher Sorry. I made a mistake. I thought you had removed that reference. I didn't realize you had added it. Spud (talk) 01:54, 21 November 2022 (UTC)