Animal-based protein diets dangerous for health--study

According to researchers a low carb diet centered on animal proteins, such as meat, dairy and eggs is actually toxic.

It not only promotes all the main chronic diseases, cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and autoimmune but also reduces the lifespan.

Senior author Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston stated, "You can have the initial Atkins-type of low-carb diet, which is loaded with sausages, bacon, steaks, and you can have healthy versions of the low-carb diet with more vegetable- or plant-based protein and fat.

"We looked at these two versions of low-carb diets and found that the impact of the two are drastically different.

"Those who follow the animal-based low-carb diet have an increased risk of total mortality and cancer mortality in particular.”

Two type of low-carbohydrate diets compared
In a bid to assess the long term impact on health by different types of 'low-carbohydrate' diets, the researchers analyzed data from the Nurses' Health study.

They tracked a total of 85,168 women aged 34 to 59 for 26 years and 44,548 men, aged between 40 to 75 years, for a period of 20 years.

All the participants were healthy without heart disease, cancer, or diabetes and were on low-carb diets that derived protein from animal or plant sources.

Factors such lifestyle, smoking, exercise, multivitamin use, and alcohol intake were taken into account.

Findings of the study
At the close of the study, a total of 12,555 women died (including 2,458 cardiovascular-related deaths and 5,780 cancer-related deaths) and 8,678 men died (including 2,746 cardiovascular-related deaths and 2,960 cancer-related deaths).

The researchers found that those who ate a meat-based diet had a 23 percent increased risk of death, a 14 percent higher chance of succumbing to heart disease and a 28 percent elevated danger of dying from cancer.

In contrast, a vegetable-based diet exhibited a 20 percent lower death rate and a 23 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

The researchers attribute the difference in health benefits to the protein sources.

The authors stated, "Low-carbohydrate diets from animal and vegetable sources may have similar major macronutrient content, but the source of the macronutrients can result in large differences in dietary components that may affect mortality, such as specific fatty acids, protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals, and phytochemicals.

“Therefore, the associations that we observed are more likely to be mediated by these bioactive components rather the carbohydrate content."

The study was released Monday in the journal 'Annals of Internal Medicine.'