Carb Diet Study Lends Support To Healthfulness Of Balanced Eating

If you were planning on baking a big pan of lasagna for dinner, you might want to think twice. According to a new study by researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, eating a diet high in carbohydrates can wreak havoc on gene expression, increasing your risk of inflammation, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and dementia. The study indicated that the ideal diet was something like the Zone diet, with a relatively equal balance of carbohydrate, protein and fat.

To conduct their study, researchers fed a group of slightly overweight men and women two different diets. One was composed of 65 percent carbs, 15 percent protein and 20 percent fat, and the other was made up of equal parts of each. Eating the high-carb diet quickly led to problems in gene expression and inflammation; researchers said that they saw changes for the worse within six days.

The study also found benefits to eating smaller, more frequent meals, according to Berit Johansen, one of the study's researchers.

"It is better to spread your calories out over the day's meals rather than to cram in a huge dinner," says Johansen. "And both an evening snack and breakfast are good. It is obviously not good to go to sleep when you are stuffed full, but the body needs to refuel after dinner, too. So that means three main meals a day and 2-3 snacks, all balanced."

This study is the first to analyze a link between gene expression and high carb diets, but it isn't the first to show that such diets can be risky. A 2009 study from Tel Aviv University indicated that the high glycemic index levels that result from eating carbohydrates can put a strain on the cardiovascular system. And a widely publicized study from this summer identified processed starches and potatoes as two leading causes of weight gain in America.

Comments

[Casa-Giardino]

09:27 AM on 09/25/2011

All these studies are a waste of money and time. One needs to eat a balanced diet - no processed foods, little to no sugar. Fresh ingredients and simplicity are key in cooking a meal.

[Kay-B]

10:00 PM on 09/23/2011

I eat baked potatoes almost every single day because I'm trying to gain weight. I also eat tuna sandwiches and bananas. Had no idea it was a bad idea..

[LanceLee]

07:09 PM on 09/23/2011

Carbs are not the problem. Sugar is the problem. And by sugar I mean grains, especially processed grains. As far as our body is concerned, eating processed grains is the same as sugar.

Sure, if you get your carbs from sugar that is bad. If you get your carbs from veggies and legumes, then carbs are good and helpful.

[ABXNOMORE]

10:59 AM on 09/23/2011

This is news? I've know this since 1986. So did Dr. Robert Atkins know this. Read Good Fat, Bad Fats by Gary Taub.

[Tammy Quackenbush]

04:15 PM on 09/22/2011

The problem isn't carbs, it's the source of carbs. Most Americans get their carbs from highly, overrefined starches and also eat a truckload of suger. Those kinds of carbs will make anyone, except a tri-athelete, gain weight in the wrong places.
The reason low carb diets works is they totally eschew processed carbs and sugars.
The main source of carbs should be healthy carbs like fruits and vegetables with small amounts of carbs from natural starches like potatoes and rice.

[ConGrpThink]

11:47 AM on 09/22/2011

Good luck trying to change the habits of America, with people like Chris Christie and the Teabaggin' folk on Medicare-paid personal mobility scooters.

[DanoX]

06:26 AM on 09/22/2011

Will promptly file in my "Well DUH!" cabinet, also known as the trash can.

[Stephen Cole]

12:43 AM on 09/22/2011

This article is disingenuous. The high carb is all wheat, potato, and rice. Humans are meant to eat 80% carb/ 10% protein/ 10% fat. You should stick to raw fruit and vegetable. Never eat processed food. Read Doug Graham. Read China Study. Watch Forks Over Knives.

[SimonBao]

08:52 AM on 09/22/2011

Other than some random names, do you have a URL to a solid, peer-reviewed "review of the literature" to back up your 80/10/10 assertion about what humans are meant to eat? And to substantiate the assertion about raw fruit and veg?

[KendraWrites]

03:56 PM on 09/22/2011

Let me introduce you to this wonderful thing called the Inuit Paradox - lots of meat, lots of fat, almost no veg:

http://discovermagazine.com/2004/oct/inuit-paradox

In fact the closer they move to a more Western diet the sicker they get.

You have to be careful with which vegetables you eat raw. Fiddlehead ferns for example, cause gastric distress when eaten raw. On a subtler level, Brassica's such as Kale and Broccoli are antiandrogens and goiterogenic when eaten raw - cooking mitigates those effects.

Nutrition is complicated. It took humans millenia to develop techniques that have proven safe over the short AND over the long term, and you can't just pick and choose to prove correct. The same diet that The China Study labeled healthy which "worked" in China lead to Thiamine deficiency when eating similarly in Malaysia. The Malay ate "poor" brown rice the Chinese "rich" white rice. So which is it are they healthy, or not?

[JMK62]

08:43 PM on 09/21/2011

Duh! This was proven about a decade ago. Who even eats a high-carb diet besides triatheles?

[honeybear64]

11:25 PM on 09/21/2011

"Who even eats a high-carb diet"? The average contemporary American, that's who. Over the last 40 years or so, consumption of sugar and other sweeteners as well as refined flour products has soared in this country, while consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy products, on the other hand, has remained relatively stable by comparison. Interestingly, it's during that very same period of time that we've seen an increase in the incidence of diet-related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. Of course, correlation is not causation, but it's something to think about nevertheless.

[jumbotron16]

11:30 PM on 09/21/2011

You just earned yourself a *foodie* badge my friend!

[frank day]

08:10 PM on 09/21/2011

It's not the Carbs,

It's the Glycemic load.

Any diabetic can give you better info. than found in this article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_load

[honeybear64]

03:09 PM on 09/23/2011

Howdy, Frank -

Well, yes and no. I agree with you that the glycemic load factor is very important (seems kind of weird, me agreeing with you on something for a change, no? LOL!).

At the same time, ALL carbohydrates require that the pancreas secrete insulin in order to be utilized by the body, so any carbohydrate intake is going to stimulate the endocrine system in that way. Whole grain bread may not spike your insulin the way a Hershey bar would, but stimulate insulin secretion it certainly does.

As a diabetic, I find that my glucose control is best maintained when I stay away from the very highest glycemic stuff altogether, and keep the lower glycemic carbohydrate-based foods down to a reasonable percentage of my diet.

[ArChiMi]

07:15 PM on 09/21/2011

Well now the potato growers will come up with their own "scientific study."

[Cimms]

07:26 PM on 09/21/2011

The, as well as the wheat and corn farmers already have. The result was the "Food Pyramid" and the healthy population we have now.

[ArChiMi]

08:14 PM on 09/21/2011

Nods!

[grailknight]

05:47 PM on 09/21/2011

This is news?

[RJKERB08]

03:54 PM on 09/21/2011

You know, only if we all listened to Jack Lalanne, we wouldn't need these studies. Again and Again he is proven correct. That poor man was screaming at the top of his lungs of the dangers of bad diets and lack of exercise and most of America ignored him.