low-carb diets
Plant-based Atkins diet
“Plant-Based Atkins Diet” This was a pretty dramatic case report,
but it was just one person. Recently, researchers at Harvard
decided to look at 100,000 people: “Low-Carb Diets and All-Cause
and Cause-Specific Mortality.” They found that low-carb diets
were associated with higher all-cause mortality,
higher cardiovascular disease mortality, and higher cancer mortality. The final nail in Atkins’ coffin. Men and women on low-carb diets
lead significantly shorter lives; more cancer deaths, more heart attacks. Sure, you may lose some weight,
but the only way we may be able to enjoy it is with a skinnier casket.
But wait! In 2009, some enterprising researchers
came up with a plant-based, low-carb diet; the so-called “Eco-Atkins” diet. They figured that maybe the problem with
the Atkins diet wasn’t that it was high-fat, high-protein, but that it was
high-animal fat, -animal protein. So they constructed a
vegan version of the Atkins diet. How is that possible? Well, lots of mock meats, seitan,
soy burgers, veggie bacon, veggie cold cuts, veggie sausage,
tofu, lot of nuts, avocado, etc. How did they do? Pretty good, actually. Instead of their bad cholesterol going up,
like it does on a meat-based Atkins, after just two weeks on the
plant-based, low-carb diet, their LDL was down more than 20%.
Now the whole study only
lasted a month, though, so you couldn’t really
make any generalizations. But it was intriguing enough that
when the data was run at Harvard, they picked out the people
eating plant-based, low-carb diets to see if they suffered
the same low-carb fate. That’s the nice thing about doing dietary
studies on 100,000 people at a time: you can find people eating
just about anything. What do you think they found? This line represents the
mortality rate of the typical diet. And this is what they found
for people following more of an Atkins-style low-carb diet:
significantly higher risk of death. But what do you think they found
for those following a plant-based, low-carb diet? Do they suffer the same crazy
mortality as the Atkins people? Or maybe they didn’t do that bad, but still had more mortality
than those eating regular diets? Or did they have the same,
or lower mortality? They had lower mortality. They concluded: “A low-carbohydrate diet
based on animal sources was associated with higher all-cause mortality
in both men and women, whereas a vegetable-based
low-carbohydrate diet was associated with lower all-cause and
cardiovascular disease mortality rates.” So it appears, what matters really isn’t
the ratio of fat to carbs to protein, but rather, the source— whether they’re coming
from plants or animals.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Plant-Based Diets for Diabetes
"Plant-Based Diets for Diabetes" I’ve talked about the role meat may
play in increasing the risk of diabetes, and the potential protective
role of healthy plant foods. But plant-based diets
not only appear to guard against getting diabetes
in the first place, they may successfully treat the disease
better than the diabetic diets patients are typically placed on, controlling
weight and cholesterol. Diets based on whole plant foods can
result in significant weight loss without any limits on portion
size or calorie counting, because plant foods tend
to be so calorically dilute. Here's a 100 calories of broccoli,
tomatoes, strawberries, compare that to a 100 calories
of chicken, cheese, or fish.
People just can't seem to eat to enough
to compensate for the calorie deficit so lose weight eating whole plant foods.
And most importantly, it works. Better. A plant-based diet beat out the conventional
American Diabetes Association diet in a head-to-head randomized
controlled clinical trial, without restricting portions,
no calorie or carb counting. A review of all such studies found that
individuals following plant-based diets experience improved reductions in blood
sugars, body weight, and cardiovascular risk, compared with those following
diets that included animal products.
And cardiovascular risk is
what kills diabetics the most. They're more likely to get strokes,
more likely heart failure. In fact, diabetes has been proposed as
a coronary heart disease risk equivalent, meaning diabetic patients without
a history of coronary disease have an equivalent risk to those
non-diabetic individuals with confirmed heart disease. A newer study used a technique to
actually measure insulin sensitivity. Improved on both diets
in the first three months, but then the veg diet pulled ahead.
And look at their LDL cholesterol. That's what we see when people
are put on plant-based diets; cholesterol comes down so much it can
actually reverse the atherosclerosis progression, reverse the
progression of heart disease.
We know about the beneficial
effect of vegetarian diets on controlling weight, blood sugars,
cholesterol, insulin sensitivity, and oxidative stress compared
to conventional diabetic diets, but what about quality
of life, mood? How did people feel after making
such a dramatic change in their diets? In this randomized controlled trial,
study subjects were assigned either to a plant-based diet
group or control group. Vegetables, grains, beans, fruits, and
nuts, with animal products limited to a maximum of one daily
portion of low-fat yogurt, and the control group got
the official diabetes diet. Quality of life improved on both
diets in the first few months, but within six months, the plant-
based group clearly pulled ahead. Same thing with
depression scores. Dropped in both groups
in the first three months, but started to rebound
in the control group. Bottom line, the more plant-based
diet led to a greater improvement in quality of life
and mood. Patients consuming a vegetarian diet
also felt less constrained than those consuming the conventional diet.
People actually felt the conventional diabetic diet was more restrictive
than the plant-based diet.
Disinhibition decreased
with a vegetarian diet, meaning those eating vegetarian
were less likely to binge. And the veg group folks
tended to feel less hungry, all of which helps with
sustainability in the long term, which is, of course, critical
for changing diet. So not only do plant-based diets
appear to work better, but they may be easier to stick to.
And with the improvement in mood, patients may exhibit desired
improvements not only in physical, but also in mental health..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
