Written by Jamie Stowe | Monday, 31 August 2009 | There is 1 comment
a big difference in the build up of fatty deposits in the arteries 
The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center located in America has undertaken research which shows that a low carbohydrate diet may be responsible for blocking arteries and thus increasing the chances of suffering from a stroke or heart attack.
Low carb diets are very fashionable and popular because they allow you to eat a large range of tasty food such as all types of meat and fish as well as cheese and other dairy products, however there has been a bit of concern that they put a lot of stress on the heart and that they could be a cause of atherosclerosis.
This new research done at the Beth Israel Institute which forms part of the Harvard Medical School was done using laboratory mice. Three different diets were used, the first was a normal mouse diet, the second was a high fat western diet and the third was a low carbohydrate, high-protein diet. The researchers said that while the low carbohydrate diet did not have a negative effect on cholesterol levels in the mice there was nevertheless a big difference in the build up of fatty deposits in the arteries which often cause heart attacks and strokes.
Interestingly the mice following the low carb diet did gain less weight than the others but had 9% more atherosclerosis than those mice on the standard high fat western diet and 15% more than those mice on the normal mouse diet.
The lead researcher of this study Professor Anthony Rosenzweig said that he was so concerned by the results that he himself decided to stop following the low carb regime that he had been following for some time. He concluded that a “moderate and balanced diet” along with regular exercise was “probably best”.
At Ukmedix News we believe that a sensible balanced diet is always the best way forward. Restricting carbohydrates does work and can help you to lose weight but be careful that you don’t compensate for the lack of carbs with unhealthy fatty food and that you get a good dose of fruits and veg every day.
This research was written up in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
There is 1 comment on this article.
John said:
Another bogus study from someone trying to cloud the issue. Mice are herbivores and they were fed an extreme protein diet in this study-and not even like that used on the typical low carb diets for people. It was way too heavy on protein as opposed to the other nutrients. So they literally poisoned the mice and want you to believe this is what will happen with people too. People are not herbivores. We can handle protein. It is our primary nutrient (if you ever take a bio-chemistry class). They also did not disclose what specifically the diet was made of. Frequently, in these studies, they do not use real food but a chemical mixture that resembles the protein/fat/carb idea. If they tried to feed the mice meat, the mice might not have eaten it because it's not food to them! Most of the other studies on the subject of low carb and cardiovascular disease report the opposite results. Dr Atkins was a cardiologist and used the diet to help his cardiac patients. the weight lose was a secondary effect.
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