[Text, picture/selected from “Timeless dieting is healthier” published by the Times, author Pikshi. Turner
Carbohydrate phobia
Carbohydrates are the core food of almost every great civilization. Whether it is now or in the past, look at civilizations around the world. Carbohydrates are an important product of most large human settlements. Perhaps we still have nostalgia for the previous hunting and collecting period, but every year when we are deciding when humans start eating carbohydrates and making bread, we will continue to raise the time earlier and earlier. We have tamed wheat, and wheat has tamed us as well, allowing us to settle in places where we can grow wheat. Look around the world, mankind thanks to wheat, rice and corn in order to thrive and multiply, but we are now a surge of low-carbon trend carbohydrate diet, carbohydrate phobia (Carbphobia) has become a serious problem. Even if the hunting collection period is excluded, the earliest period when the low-carb diet started can be traced back to the large amount of meat and low-carb diets carried out by the Greek Olympic athletes. During 1920, the ketogenic diet was used for the first time to treat children with epilepsy symptoms, with unprecedented success. Since then, every five to ten years, there will be a wave of low-carbon water diets in society. Whether it is the Inuit diet, the Atkins diet, the Paleolithic diet, the Miami diet, or the ketogenic diet that is now popular among the general public, the latter has a low carbohydrate intake. Put the body into a state of hunger.
As with other dieting methods, low-carb high-fat (LCHF) also claims that this method of weight loss is effective. Not only that, they further proposed extreme remarks such as any index that can reverse diabetes and improve health, and even claimed that the current dietary guidelines are harming us, and we should avoid carbohydrates and consume saturated fat as much as possible. . Let us examine some of these claims below.
“Low-carb, high-fat diet is the only best way to lose weight.” This concept can’t really be tested. Although in nutrition, because it is difficult to force people to eat in different ways, especially in the real world outside the laboratory that can control the variation, it is rare to conduct randomized controlled trials (RCTs); but low The results of randomized controlled trials of fat diet and low-carbon water diet show that the results of these two control groups are not very different, and the long-term effects are also not obvious from the perspective of the general public.
Because of these experimental results, we also learned that a low-carb, high-fat diet is not the only treatment for type 2 diabetes. In some cases, this diet does provide some help, but adequate sleep, stress management, a Mediterranean diet, or increased physical activity can also achieve the same effect. Low-carb high-fat diet is a special treatment for the concept of diabetes, it is easy to make people mistakenly think that carbohydrates can cause diabetes. We can easily see where this idea came from: because eating carbohydrates will cause the body to release insulin, and type 2 diabetes is characterized by blocking insulin secretion and extremely high blood sugar concentrations. But nothing in nutrition is so simple and straightforward, this carbohydrate-insulin argument has also been exposed because it is too simplified.
In addition, the way of eating cereals and a larger amount of carbohydrates is hundreds of years earlier than any sudden “lifestyle” disease boom. If carbohydrate intake is the main cause of these diseases, first of all, it underestimates the complexity of the human body; secondly, it cannot explain why humans have eaten so many grains in the past, but it still looks safe and healthy. However, it is not only that they misunderstood the science behind saturated fats and carbohydrates, which has caused harm to our health; but also because they incited excessive fear of carbohydrates, but also bullied people who are brave to refute their theories. Let me focus on this group. In my clinic and online, the most common condition is carbohydrate phobia; almost all the food problems or eating disorders I have encountered have more or less carbohydrate-related problems. They feel that they need to plan for a grain-free meal, a carbohydrate-based diet, or avoid eating grains and sugar at the same time, and believe that if they do not do so, they will gain weight, suffer from diabetes, or become unhealthy.
We have substantial and overwhelming evidence that ingesting whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables can bring a lot of health benefits. But basically, the low-carb high-fat diet exercise puts these foods and other foods with high sugar content, such as breakfast cereals and energy drinks, into the same category. They stacked these carbohydrate sources into one piece, and told us that these are bad food, equivalent to a few tablespoons and a few tablespoons of sugar. This is a ridiculously simplified statement because foods like wheat contain not only carbohydrates, but also other nutrients such as fat, protein and micronutrients. In addition, we usually don’t just eat a single food, but combine different foods into one meal, and the type of food included in each meal will also affect the digestion process and the rate of nutrient absorption. So from a biochemical point of view, such a comparison is unreasonable, because the reaction of sugar (sucrose) is very different from the reaction of a long and complicated glucose atom chain; if it is hard to say that the two are to some extent The same is simply intentionally instigating panic.
It makes no sense to regard the British dietary guidelines as the culprit for type 2 diabetes and other health problems. why? Because people never follow this guide. If people don’t trust such a guide, you can’t blame it on the guide. In fact, research shows that if we can follow the diet guidelines, the entire ethnic group will become healthier. According to a study in 2015, one group of subjects was told to follow the dietary pattern set according to the dietary guidelines, and the other group followed a traditional British diet (control group). After twelve weeks, the group that followed the dietary guidelines ate more fiber, unsaturated fat, and lower added sugars and saturated fat, but the total amount of fat was the same as the control group; meanwhile, they ate Whole grains were also doubled compared to the control group. When the researchers evaluated the cardiovascular disease risk factors in their bodies, they found that the dietary guideline group estimated that the probability of suffering from cardiovascular disease was 15% lower than that of the control group, because their inflammation rate and blood pressure were lower, and the low density The concentration of LDL cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol) is also lower. This is because the dietary guidelines aim to increase vegetable intake, whole grains and fiber, and at the same time reduce saturated fat and add sugar”, which is often overlooked in low-carb, high-fat diets. That’s right, the diet guidelines did suggest people to reduce their total fat intake before, but this is no longer the case. Advocates of low-carb, high-fat diets often argue that past dietary guidelines have incorrect ideas about cholesterol and fat, and we have therefore become more unhealthy, so we need to adopt different diets, and this alternative is a low-carbon water diet; But what they say is really wrong.
We now know that from the perspective of the general public, reducing total fat intake is not necessarily the correct answer, but the focus is on the type of fat we consume. It is very beneficial for us to consume foods derived from fatty oils such as fish, olive oil and other vegetable oils, nuts and avocados. Whether it’s a relatively high-fat diet like the Mediterranean diet or a lower-fat diet, all healthy eating patterns have in common is the reduction of saturated fat intake. The government’s recommended guidelines change attitudes toward total fat because science is more advanced and research is more detailed; but they still recommend reducing saturated fat intake because the research results also support this claim.
If we look not only at individual nutrients but also at individual foods, we will marvel at the subtle differences caused by scientific mysteries, and understand that dairy products such as cheese, milk, and yogurt are good sources of saturated fat, but Unlike other saturated fat foods, it will have a negative impact on health, but it will bring many benefits. In the same way, this subtle subtlety is also reflected in whole grains, and whole grains can also bring a high degree of benefit. We should not stay away from them.
If you insist that low-carbon water diets are always bad and unhealthy, this is too unfair and will make me look as bad as the leaders of low-carbon water operations. In fact, sometimes low-carbon water diets are very effective for some people and can also make them feel good. However, the health benefits of a low-carb water diet have little to do with low-carbohydrates. The focus is on replacing food with carbohydrates. Studies have shown that if a large amount of saturated fat is substituted for carbohydrates, it may be harmful to health and longevity; and if foods rich in fiber and low saturated fats such as beans are substituted for carbohydrates, it will have a similar effect to the Mediterranean diet And will not increase the risk of death. Therefore, I reiterate that health is related to the overall dietary pattern, rather than deliberately ingesting or excluding certain foods. Even so, the low-carbohydrate diet cannot completely shirk its responsibility, because there are still many low-carbon water diet leaders claim that no matter how much saturated fat is taken, it will not cause harm to the human body. This kind of claim is not only absolutely wrong, but also absolutely harmful to the human body.
