Low-Carbohydrate Diets

Joel M. Kauffman , University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, 600
South 43rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104

For about the past 50 years, most government agencies in many
countries and many non-governmental associations have recommended
highcarbohydrate diets, and restricted intake of fats, especially
animal fats, because of their content of saturated fats and
cholesterol, as well as plant oils high in saturates. This campaign
was intensified in the past 20 years, coinciding with a massive
increase in the proportion of people in the USA and UK who are
overweight, obese, or diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes. The simple
rationales and supposedly scientific evidence for such advice is shown
to be flawed and, at no time in the past 50 years, have diet experts
had a consensus. Reasoned objections to high-carbohydrate low-fat
diets co-existed for the entire period; but these were overwhelmed by
the financial power of the high-carbohydrate advocates.

Conversely, other sources from the medical and nutritional literature,
based on studies and trials, show benefits of low-carbohydrate diets,
both in weight loss and in improved values in conventional tests for
hypertension, "hyperlipidemia," and inflammation. This is often found
to be the case in the actual data, even in papers on studies designed
to provide evidence of the opposite. The conclusions in the abstracts
of many such papers often do not match their actual data. Many studies
also show that adherence to low-carbohydrate diets is better than for
other types of diet.

The 20 authors of the 12 books reviewed herein have recommended
lowcarbohydrate diets, some with no restrictions on intakes of fat
and/or protein. Not only do all of the books have a plausible
biochemical rationale for their advice, but they present histories of
extremely long adherence to low-carbohydrate diets by individuals,
many with medical degrees, with good health being the result. Clinical
observations by 9 of the authors who have extensive experience
treating obese and diabetic patients support the value of
low-carbohydrate diets. Many other advantages of low-carbohydrate
diets are shown by improvements in a diverse area of afflictions, from
Crohn's and celiac diseases, to cancer, multiple sclerosis, and
arthritis. Even the performance of athletes who believed they were
better served by high-carbohydrate diets was improved with
low-carbohydrate diets. However, many other aspects of diet advice in
these books are not in agreement, and a majority of them contain
technical errors.

This review essay also shows that the energy content of specific
foods, as determined by burning them, has little relation to their
varied levels of digestibility and actual energy content as foods. The
misguided diet stance of agencies and foundations is shown to have led
to food labels which are misleading.

Low-carbohydrate diets, even if maintained for decades, have been
demonstrated to be safe and effective. Nevertheless, they are still
considered to be alternative, and thus targets of attack by certain
associations and governmental agencies.

Keywords: diet, calories, carbohydrate, fat, lipids, cholesterol,
protein, obesity, diabetes, insulin, atherosclerosis, stroke, cancer,
arthritis, gluten, celiac disease