HEALTHY DIETS AND SCIENCE: Low fat/high carbohydrate diets are associated with higher heart disease risk

The raison d'etre of this website is to provide you with hard scientific information which may help you make informed decisions in your quest for health (so far I have blogged concise summaries of over 1,500 scientific studies and have had three books published).

My research is mainly focused on the effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and statin drugs on health. If you know anyone who is worried about their cholesterol levels and heart disease, or has been told to take statin drugs you could send them a link to this website, and to my statin or cholesterol or heart disease books.

David Evans

Independent Health Researcher

Friday, 18 March 2011

Low fat/high carbohydrate diets are associated with higher heart disease risk

This post includes a synopsis of a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation 1999 Oct;104(8):1087-96

Study title and authors:
Effects of a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet on VLDL-triglyceride assembly, production, and clearance.
Parks EJ, Krauss RM, Christiansen MP, Neese RA, Hellerstein MK.
Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, St. Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA.

This paper can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10525047

Parks notes that low-fat, high-carbohydrate (LF/HC) diets commonly elevate (bad) triglyceride concentrations.

The study investigated the effects of a LF/HC diet and a control diet (higher in fat and lower in carbohydrate).

The study found that:
(a) The LF/HC diet resulted in a 60% elevation in (bad) triglyceride concentrations.
(b) The LF/HC diet resulted in a 37% reduction in very low density lipoprotein-triglyceride (VLDL-TG clearance) - which means higher levels of the (bad) VLDL-TG.
(c) The LF/HC diet resulted in a 18% reduction in whole-body fat oxidation - which means the body burns fat more slowly and makes you fatter.
(d) The LF/HC diet resulted in significant elevations in fasting apo B-48 concentrations. Apo B-48 concentrations are a marker for chylomicron remnants which are associated with heart disease.