Want to reduce your type 2 diabetes risk? Eating a balanced diet helps, but researchers now say the type of diet you follow also matters–and it isn’t what you think it is.
Reporting in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a health journal, researchers from Sweden’s Linkoping University say low-carb diets help reduce glucose levels better than low-fat diets, making it a more effective treatment for type 2 diabetes.
“It has been proposed that dietary strategies can modulate inflammatory activity,” says Fredrick H. Nystrom, co-researcher of the study. “The clinical trial resulted in a similar weight loss comparing low-carbohydrate diet and low-fat diet, but only the low-carbohydrate diet had a favorable impact on inflammation in patients with type 2 diabetes.”
Type 2 diabetes is believed to be caused by multiple factors, which include a person’s genetics, environment, and lifestyle choices. In years past, the American Diabetes Association refused to acknowledge that certain diets, such as low-carb diets, could help reduce the risk of developing diabetes, however, claiming that eating a bad diet in general–such as eating a diet high in processed food–was the real issue. But recently, they overturned this ruling, now believing that low-carb diets could offer a slight advantage.
Now, the proof is on paper.
In March 2014, Cambridge University cardiovascular epidemiologist Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury also made the same conclusion, slamming low-fat diets.
“It’s not saturated fat we should worry about,” said Chowdhury in a report published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “It’s the high-carbohydrate or sugary diet that should be the focus of dietary guidelines. If anything is driving your low-density lipoproteins in a more adverse way, it’s carbohydrates.”
Now in their latest study, Swedish scientists say that low-fat diets won’t do much for lowering glucose levels either, an important type 2 diabetes factor. In their study, researchers had participants with diabetes follow a low-carb or low-fat diet, then examined their weight and glucose levels to see if it improved or worsened their diabetes. As it turned out, both diets helped reduce their weight–but it was only the low-carb diet that provided the biggest decrease in glucose levels. In conclusion, they say that following a low-carb diet may provide a better advantage for those who want to control or even get rid of their type 2 diabetes diagnosis.
“To conclude, advice to follow LCD [low carb diet] or LFD [low fat diet] had similar effects on weight reduction while effects on inflammation differed,” say researchers. “Only LCD [low carb diet] was found significantly to improve the subclinical inflammatory state in type 2 diabetes.”
Obviously, the recommendation here is pretty obvious then: If you are at risk for diabetes, or even have it, your best option now may be to limit your carbohydrates. If you’re following a low-fat diet instead, you’re probably just wasting your time.
Readers: Have you tried a low-carb or low-fat diet before?
Sources:
Study: Low-Carb Diets More Effective Than Low-Fat Diets at Controlling Glucose – InformaHealthcare.com
Study Questions Fat and Heart Disease Link – NYTimes.com
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