Article about nutrition, obesity and carb/fat diets

Food Nutrition
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Here’s a recent article about nutrition & obesity, it also touches on insulin resistance. Many of the conclusions are obvious, for example, avoiding processed, high-GI foods can improve overall health and contribute to weight loss.

I’m not in a position to critically evaluate the study, but I think 600+ participants is more than the average fare, and there are some conclusions that are interesting. Some summary statements from the NYT article:

“[The study] found that people who cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods while concentrating on eating plenty of vegetables and whole foods — without worrying about counting calories or limiting portion sizes — lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a year. The strategy worked for people whether they followed diets that were mostly low in fat or mostly low in carbohydrates. And their success did not appear to be influenced by their genetics or their insulin-response to carbohydrates…”

“The researchers also looked at whether people who secreted higher levels of insulin in response to carbohydrate intake — a barometer of insulin resistance — did better on the low-carb diet. Surprisingly, they did not, Dr. Gardner said…”

“We really need to focus on that foundational diet, which is more vegetables, more whole foods, less added sugar and less refined grains.”

NYT article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/well/eat/counting-calories-weight-loss-diet-dieting-low-carb-low-fat.html

Article (or at least the abstract) of the study results here: Low-Fat vs Low-Carbohydrate Diet on Weight Loss in Overweight Adults

All of this reminded me of a dormant thread here at tuD about homemade culinary goodness, so in that healthy spirit I posted a new picture there: https://forum.tudiabetes.org/t/food-is-art-not-just-numbers-share-your-masterpieces

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We don’t know how they define Healthy low fat, and Healthy low carb.

I did read on another site that the low carb wasn’t that low (maybe 100g/day), and the low fat also wasn’t terribly low fat.

Take-away message is that a diet focusing on mostly unprocessed natural foods, is sustainable over the longer term (1 year for this study). Cutting sugars and processed foods is probably the most important component. Ie. quality of the diet. For many people this may be enough to result in a very positive change in their health.

Does that mean that strict low carb / keto is not relevant for some. Certainly it can be. And there are studies looking at that ongoing.

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I’ll sound silly but here goes:

I found that lowering my carbs, it took me to the outside of the grocery story. That’s where all the fresh, unprocessed food is. I find I go fresh before frozen, frozen before canned. So I agree that the quality of the diet is important. By being no carb/lo carb I inadvertently followed the low processed/low sugar choices. Mostly proteins and vegetables for me and I naturally cut back on the processed stuff.

So I agree with you that the study, It was very interesting. 600+ I think is a good sampling for us to listen to seriously.

Thank you for sharing!

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quite predictable results, but still, very informative