Most diet plans, including low carb diet plans are
best taken with a grain of salt, because although one may work for
your best friend, it may not work for you. For those with serious
weight problems and have co-existing issues such as hyperglycaemia
(high blood sugar levels) or like some of us hypoglycaemia (low
blood sugar levels) etc., the popular diet plans usually will not be
able to cater to individual needs.
We are all individuals and as such we need to feed ourselves as
individuals, having said this some diet plans will be more
beneficial for the general population that others.
To assess which particular diet plan will be beneficial, you can
follow these guidelines. They are very much common sense points, and
provide a good framework which many nutrition professionals would
broadly follow, and within which you can divide the scammy diet
plans from those that can offer you safe and healthy diet ideas.
- Diet offers sufficient balance and a variety of carbohydrates, protein
and fats.
- Diet does not exclude one particular food group, and
encourage excessive consumption of another.
- Diet encourages exercise to complement sensible eating
habits.
- Diet encourages awareness of portion sizes.
- Diet does not encourage unrealistic quick weight loss.
- Diet is backed up with medical research data.
In addition to these points, I've broadly outlined the low carb diet
plans, which seem to be occupying the minds of dieters and
researchers alike, as well as the research for and against pertinent
to the low carb diet plans.
Low Carb Diets
A lot of the diet plans these days center around the low carb diet
plans. These low carb diet plans are considered by some diet fads,
others consider it the new wave in healthy eating. Diets such as The
New Atkins Diet Revolution maintain that obese people are insulin
sensitive and carbohydrates make them gain weight. Low carb diet
plans such as The Zone lay down specific proportion of
carbohydrates, protein and fats that should be consumed in order to
lose weight and while fats are reduced, the main source of energy
comes from the consumption of protein.
Low carb diet plans such as Sugar Busters, believe that sugar is
your body's most heinous weight loss enemy and since carbohydrates
are the foods that are processed into sugars � carbohydrates should
be limited. The Scarsdale Diet also is a low carb, high protein diet
and offers a 2 week crash dieting plan.
Popular diets such as the South Beach Diet and the Carbohydrate
Addicts Diet are also low carb diet plans that have become popular
with dieters who have tried and failed at the Atkins diet. All these
diets see themselves as the worlds answer to the obesity problem.
To be fair, there are significant and many research papers that
support and argue against the low carb revolution, as yet the wider
medical community has not fully made it's mind up as to whether the
diets are something that is favourable in the long term.
Recent research by Layman et. al., and Saris have found that the low
carb and high protein diets provide little benefit to dieters.
Researchers found that when protein was moderately increased and
carbohydrates proportionately decreased, insulin levels stabilised
but no significant weight was lost. Saris in his review concluded
that it is probable that a low carb, high fat diet will increase the
likelihood of weight gain.
While there is a lot of evidence against the low carb philosophy,
there is also a lot of evidence to support it. Research published in
May, 2004, found that when patients on a low carb diet were compared
with patients on a low fat diet, those patients who had consumed a
low carb diet had a greater weight loss, decreased triglyceride
levels and increased levels of HDL's - in other words their
cholesterol levels had improved. To put the icing on the cake
research has just been published to support the
long
term efficacy of eating a low carb diet.
Despite the evidence to support low carb diet plans, mainstream
medicine still does not recommend them. The main points of
contention with the low carb, high protein diets is that they don't
offer balance and variety and could prove dangerous for people at
risk of heart disease. Particularly with low carb diet plans such as
the scarsdale diet, they are not realistic and cannot be maintained
in the long term causing yo-yo dieting and no one wants that !
References:
Wim HM Saris Sugars, energy metabolism, and body weight control
Am J Clin Nutr 78: 850S-857S
Donald K. Layman, Harn Shiue, Carl Sather, Donna J. Erickson and
Jamie Baum Increased Dietary Protein Modifies Glucose and Insulin
Homeostasis in Adult Women during Weight Loss
Nutrition.org
Yamashita T, Sasahara T, Pomeroy SE, Collier G, Nestel PJ.
Arterial compliance, blood pressure, plasma leptin, and plasma
lipids in women are improved with weight reduction equally with a
meat-based diet and a plant-based diet. Metabolism. 1998
Nov;47(11):1308-14.
Yancy WS Jr, Olsen MK, Guyton JR, Bakst RP, Westman EC. A
low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-fat diet to treat
obesity and hyperlipidemia: a randomized, controlled trial. Ann
Intern Med. 2004 May 18;140(10):769-77.
Copyright � 2004 Jenny Mathers. All Rights Reserved.
About the Author
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