Low-carb and low-fat diets associated with lower heart disease risk if rich in high-quality, plant-based foods, low in animal products : science

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

General reminder that nutrition 'science' is mostly paid for by corporations (see "sugar is better than fat") and the whole Ancel Keys 'Seven Countries Study' (cherry picked from 20+ countries) debacle and needs very careful handling.

If you want to get useful information on nutrition, I recommend immediately disregarding anything from Harvard, do your own research, but I've found it significantly corrupt and biased towards the second largest US export (AgTech) after guns.

FWIW this comes from the perspective of someone trained in hard science (Phys/Math) who then did advanced (published) work in BioInformatics (learning the complexities of Bio) and then looked at nutrition, what a shitshow !

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I have lots of biases in the area the paper is talking about. I've acquired the actual paper and on first pass they don't define what low carb means... really, they don't, anywhere... including the supplemental material. Making best effort inferences on how they make the category cohorts, it seems 40% of energy from carbs is the cutoff. 40% of a 1800 calorie diet is about 200g of carbs per day.

Currently my smells on this paper

Who : Harvard nutrition, a org with a history of heavy plant based bias
What they said : PBF beats ABF in a 200g "low carb" diet using intermediate health metrics
On the basis of what : Epidemiology, on food frequency questionaries, using major assume corrective factors
In what context : 200g/day carb diet, not controlling for processed foods (so healthy user bias the unprocessed abf group isn't represented at all)... they explicitly say this paper doesn't apply to keto "evidence from our study regarding the LCD and LFD patterns cannot be directly generalized to diets with much lower carbohydrates or fats intake, such as the ketogenic diet."

The bias is really evident in that they defined healthy and unhealthy LCD in terms of animal products... that is presupposing the outcomes in their healthy fat ranking system!

When I have more time I'll do a full post on this paper after I've had time to read it and figure out what the actual data is. I'm gobsmacked a paper on low carb doesn't even define what % of carbs is low carb explicitly... why make that so indirect and hidden!?!??!!

The good news is harvard is finally acknowledging the tsunami of low carb and keto research in their own way, but they are going to do it kicking and screaming on the pbf hill the entire time... but progress is progress.

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Cool, I'll look out for the full review. Jeebus 200g/40% is 'low carb', not unexpected, but it's like they don't even try.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 2 points 1 day ago

They are trying really hard to do something

It's weird, when the keto and carnivore papers get published they are always open access... but this paper... closed... and doesn't define their categories... it's curious. If i wasn't a charitable man I make think that was intentional.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Anson Keys

Ancel Keys

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 days ago

Thanks,

[–] subOrange@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (17 children)

What a title….. what do I eat now?!

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago (10 children)

what do I eat now?!

Fiber.

Specifically leafy greens and legumes.

Same answer it's always been.

Eat a bunch of that, even if you don't want to. And then you can literally eat all you want of anything else. You just won't want to eat much of anything else, because it takes forever to digest legumes and leafy greens.

The "problem" is that stuff is cheap as fuck and there's no way for anyone to make any money off telling people to do that

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 7 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Aren't oats supposed to be pretty good too? Although they are fairly high in carbs. Far cheaper than legumes, can get a kg of dry oats for about £0.50 while a similar amount of chickpeas is around 4 times that price.

Problem is if I simmer some oats in water and a pinch of salt then add some fruit my partner says it isn't a proper dinner.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (9 children)

Yeah, leafy greens and legumes are good because there's a bunch of extra vitamins.

Oatmeal (especially fortified) has a bunch of other stuff tho.

Like, don't literally only eat a few things. Anything high in fiber keeps you full for a long time.

Especially for the dudes, eating fiber is a very easy preventative measure for colo-rectal cancer. And it's hard to look at the correlation between modern low fiber high processed food diets and the skyrocketing rates of colo-rectal cancer and say there's zero correlation.

But convincing people to eat fiber gets a weird amount of opposition

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[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oats are almost pure carbs.

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This is where the data meets an uncomfortable impasse. Hispanics in the U.S. live a lot longer than whites. It's not because of socio-economics. Hispanics eat a lot of meat, too. It is theorised that their legume heavy diet might be responsible. Meaning that, despite eating a lot of carbs, they still live longer. I suspect longevity effects are primarily related to the fibre. This might be true in the study linked. Perhaps it isn't the low carb/low fat part which gave heart benefits, but the higher fibre intake.

As for the mechanisms:

Fibre binds bile acids, which increases bile acid secretion. The liver uses LDL to make more bile acid, reducing LDL.
Fibre acts as a glucose release modulator. Glucose spikes are responsible for a range of immediate and systemic issues. Reducing overall glucose consumption and especially spikes results in lower risk of type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and atherosclerosis progression.
Lower blood pressure (we're not really sure why yet).
Fermentable fibres are metabolized by gut bacteria into short-chain fatty acids. These reduce systemic inflammation, improve gut barrier integrity, improve insulin sensitivity, and regulate immune function. The inflammation one in particular could explain a great deal of the health benefits.
The cancer risk specifically decreases because of dilution and faster transit of carcinogens, SCFA production (especially butyrate, which has anti-tumor properties), and reduced insulin and IGF-1 signalling.
Fibre keeps you full for longer, reducing the risk of obesity.

[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There can be many more factors influencing lifespan than just diet, though.

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Quite right, and this is the problem with correlational studies like that linked: they're observational. We can't do controlled studies on humans, so we try very hard to control for confounds.

[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Or they just don’t eat processed crap.

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

I would be surprised if that were true but I haven't seen any data either way on that.

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[–] hogmomma@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I have a cup of green lentils for breakfast and another one for lunch. Huge fan.

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do you chug it from the can or add some spices?

[–] hogmomma@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I buy them raw and cook them with spices, yeah.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How long does your 1 lentil for lunch keep you full for?

[–] hogmomma@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

It's a big freakin' lentil.

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[–] Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

High-quality plant-based foods.

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[–] fizzle@quokk.au 6 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I mean yeah, but most people will find a low-carb low-fat diet to be very unfulfilling and even depressing in a fairly short period of time.

I suspect most people could easily do it for a week or so with the right support, but as a long term health intervention I'd say 1 in 100 people can adhere to this kind of regime.

[–] Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

The title is very misleading. This study is saying that it does not matter if you do a low-carb or low-fat diet, it matters what the quality of the food is. Basically eat more plant-based high-quality food and less refined carbohydrates and animal fat. So go ahead and sprinkle olive oil on everything if it makes you happy.

[–] xep@discuss.online 1 points 1 day ago

Yes, eating to satiety makes it much easier to sustain a diet. With low carb, it helps to eat lots of healthy fat and food with lots of highly bio-available nutrients.

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I mean, that exact same criticism applies to every diet. Caloric restriction, intermittent fastin, pescaterianism/vegetarianism/veganism, etc.

There are 3 options:

Eat to live, rather than love to eat. Treat nutrition as a utility and not entertainment.
Learn to enjoy healthy eating. Not just the mouth feel and taste, but appreciating how much better you feel for the ~21 hours of the day you don't spend eating.
Eat all the terrible things. Enjoy the taste and mouth feel. Laugh, and grow fat.

[–] rayyy@piefed.social 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

More like low carb and high fat diet (good fats like olive oil, nuts and fatty fish) are associated with lower heart disease plus it reverses type 2 diabetes in some, but they will figure it out, eventually. Yeah, my wife and I are living proof.
A side note: About half the population, depending on their ancestry, does quit well on a higher carb diet,

[–] Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Are you seriously saying you know better than the scientist who did extensive research based on your anecdotal evidence with n=2?

[–] xep@discuss.online 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When the 1 in n=1 is yourself, it's the most important result of all.

[–] Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure, when you make decisions for yourself. Not when you are advising others or giving your truth as the full truth.

[–] xep@discuss.online 1 points 1 day ago

Where did the OP do that?

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 4 points 2 days ago

You're not gonna trick me out of an early death via heart attack.