Before The New Atkins

Westman, Volek and Phinney were among the contributers (and Westman headlined) the following, partially Atkins Foundation funded, review:

Low-carbohydrate Nutrition and Metabolism

I can't recommend reading this highly enough.

I've listed the references in a separate post, numbered (the formatting farkled the last few but I'll let you count ;) )

For a non-gimmicky discussion of how low carb diets REALLY work for weight loss, this is where it's at!

Comments

arus said…
hi carbsane,
as far as i can see you highlight the possible negative effects of long term VLC diets. nonetheless you advocate a low carb eating style. (lets say 50-150g/carbs/day). right? (goal: improving IR, DM type 2)

i wonder what is the rational behind. if improving one's Insulinsensitivity why not aiming at depleting IMCL due to HC/LF?

does this have sth to do with that: "Because fatty acid use and oxidation [are] impaired in patients with type 2 diabetes, the 14-d high-fat diet seemed to have reversed this defect by allowing adaptation of fuel selection toward fatty acids as the main energy substrates and maintaining glucose oxidation at a minimum."
stated in Low-carbohydrate Nutrition and Metabolism
CarbSane said…
@Arus: For weight loss - e.g. in deficit - LC improves IR. Over the long haul in maintenance or if one is gaining weight it would appear that LCHF makes one IR. I disagree that IMCL buildup is due to HC/LF - such a diet is probably least likely to cause IMCL. IMCL results from a state of overnutrition.

I don't advocate eating any particular way. I did VLC to lose weight but I started looking at this stuff to assure myself it was healthy for the long term. What I'm learning is that it does not appear to be the way to go.

I still eat fairly low carb because it helps me control my weight, but I never did eat a particularly high fat version of it this go round - and certainly wasn't part of this "up the fat" movement. The prevailing "wisdom" that a "proper" LC diet is high fat, moderate protein, low carb is concerning to me. Folks eating like 75% fat don't seem to be faring all that well over several years and statistically zero humans ever ate that way.