Low-Carb Diet More Effective In Cutting Inflammation: Study

A diet low in carbohydrates is more effective than a diet low in fat in reducing saturated fatty acids in the blood and reducing markers of inflammation, a new study unfolds.

Ever since patients with metabolic syndrome are instructed to eat a low-fat diet but carbohydrate restriction has been found to be more effective at lowering triglyceride levels, characteristic of the syndrome, researchers reveal.

Researchers at the University of Connecticut agree that reducing inflammation factors are key in treating metabolic syndrome related diseases. The new study shows much greater improvement in inflammatory makers in patients with metabolic syndrome on a very low carbohydrate approach compared to a low fat diet.

The study is currently under review and shows that "lowering total and saturated fat only had a small effect on circulating inflammatory markers whereas reducing carbohydrate led to considerably greater reductions in a number of pro0inflammatory cytokines, chemokines and adhesion molecules. These data implicate dietary carbohydrates rather than fat as a more significant nutritional factor contributing to inflammatory processes."

"The real importance of diets that lower carbohydrate content is that they are grounded in mechanism carbohydrates stimulate insulindefine secretion which biases fat metabolism towards storage rather than oxidation. The inflammation results open a new aspect of the problem," Richard Feinman, co-author of the study explained.

One of the remarkable effects in the data presented that may have contributed to the results is that despite the three-fold greater saturated fat in the diet for the low-carb group, saturated fat in the blood turned out to be higher in the low fat group due to the process known as carbohydrate-induced lipogenesis.

"This clearly sows the limitations of the idea that ‘you are what you eat’. Metabolism plays a big role. ‘You are what your body does with what you eat'," Dr. Jeff S. Volek, lead author of the study concluded.