My sister, who is convinced I am committing suicide by wanting to go low-carb (she is a rabid vegetarian, loves high carb low fat foods), sent me a link to this study. Does anyone know more about this, exactly what diets were followed? I find the abstract very vague, has anyone read the full article? I was quite interested because they followed the subjects for one year but the outcome is pretty disturbing.

Here is the link and the medline abstract.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...3&dopt=Abstract


Prev Cardiol 2002 Summer;5(3):110-8


The effect of high-, moderate-, and low-fat diets on weight loss and cardiovascular disease risk factors.

Fleming RM.

Section of Preventive Cardiology, The Camelot Foundation at The Fleming Heart & Health Institute, and the Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68114, USA. rfmd1~fhhi.omhcoxmail.com

Over 60% of Americans are overweight and a number of popular diets have been advocated, often without evidence, to alleviate this public health hazard. This study was designed to investigate the effects of several diets on weight loss, serum lipids, and other cardiovascular disease risk factors. One hundred men and women followed one of four dietary programs for 1 year: a moderate-fat (MF) program without calorie restriction (28 patients); a low-fat (LF) diet (phase I) (16 patients); a MF, calorie-controlled (phase II) diet (38 patients); and a high-fat (HF) diet (38 subjects). Weight, total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides (TG), homocysteine (Ho), and lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)], were measured every 4th month. The TC/HDL-C ratio was calculated and fibrinogen levels were measured at baseline and after one year. The MF diet resulted in a 2.6% (NS) decrease in weight compared with 18.4% (p=0.045) decrease in patients on phase I, 12.6% (p=0.0085) decrease in patients on phase II, and 13.7% (p=0.025) decrease in those on the HF diet. TC was reduced by 5% (NS) in the MF group, 39.1% (p=0.0005) in the phase I group, and 30.4% (p=0.0001) in the phase II group. HF group had a 4.3% (NS) increase in TC. LDL-C was reduced by 6.1% (NS) on MF, 52.0% (p=0.0001) on phase I, and 38.8% (p=0.0001) on phase II. Patients on HF had a 6.0% (NS) increase in LDL-C. There were nonsignificant reductions in HDL-C in those on MF (-1.5%) and HF (-5.8%). Patients on phase I showed an increase in HDL-C of 9.0% (NS), while those on phase II diet had a 3.6% increase (NS) in HDL-C. TC/HDL-C increased (9.8%) only in patients following the high-fat diets (NS). Patients on MF had a 5.3% (NS) reduction in TC/HDL-C, while those on LF had significant reductions on the phase I ( -45.8%; p=0.0001) diet and phase II diet (-34.7%; p=0.0001). TG levels increased on both the MF (1.0%) and HF (5.5%) diets, although neither was statistically significant. People following the phase I and II diets showed reductions of 37.3% and 36.9%, respectively. Ho levels increased by 9.7% when people followed the MF diet and by 12.4% when they followed the HF diet. Patients following the phase I and phase II diets showed reductions of 13.6% and 14.6%, respectively. Only those following phase II diets showed a tendency toward significant improvement (p=0.061). Lp(a) levels increased by 4.7% following the MF (NS) diet and by 31.0% (NS) on the HF diet. Patients following phase I showed a 7.4% (NS) reduction and a 10.8% reduction (NS) following phase II. Fibrinogen levels increased only in individuals following HF diets (11.9%), while patients following MF (-0.6%), phase I (-11.0%), and phase II (-6.3%) diets showed nonsignificant reductions in fibrinogen. Patients on MF demonstrated nonsignificant reductions in weight, LDL-C, TC, HDL-C, TC/HDL-C ratios, and fibrinogen and nonsignificant increases in TGs, Lp(a), and homocysteine. There was significant weight loss in patients on phase I and II and HF diets after 1 year. Reductions in TC, LDL-C, TGs, and TC/HDL ratios were significant only in patients either following a LF diet or a MF, calorically reduced diet. Only patients following HF diets showed a worsening of each cardiovascular disease risk factor (LDL-C, TG, TC, HDL-C, TC/HDL ratio, Ho, Lp(a), and fibrinogen), despite achieving statistically significant weight loss. Copyright 2002 CHF, Inc.

PMID: 12091753 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I'll confess that trying to read through this study game me a headache but one thing was immediately apparent to me ... how does this study apply to you ?

It's a study of fat in the diet. Carbs are not mentionned at all.

Typically a low carb diet will result in drastically lowered triglycerides and an improvement in your ratio of HDL to LDL.

Just browse through the various forums and you will see testimonial after testimonial about improved blood work.

And if you are truely worried, there is a simple solution. Just get your blood checked before starting low-carb and then again after a few months on the diet. That should be all the proof you need

You know....this study doesn't say anything about the carb levels of any of the participants. If carb consumption was unrestricted, I can well understand how the high fat group got the results they did. High fat + high carb = higher cholesterol, triglycerides and LDL and lower HDL.
If your sister is trying to show you that low carb/high fat/adequate protein is bad for you, this study doesn't do it so she'll have to keep trying.
You might want to get a copy of the Harvard study that spanned 6 months and showed nothing but improvement across the board in cardiovascular risk profiles for all the participants that stuck with it and hand your sister a copy to read.

I just finished reading Protein Power, and there's an excellent table in the book that shows how dietary fat has absolutely no impact on insulin levels. Insulin is what is behind making most of us fat. Too much of it is associated with bad cholesterol production, high blood pressure, triglycerides, diabetes, etc. Eating high fat foods--no matter how much--has no impact. But there IS a catch! As soon as carbs in sufficient numbers (such as in a "normal" diet) are added--(fat + carbohydrates), the insulin levels shoot way up. Most of the foods we all love(d) to eat are high fat+carbs (donuts, pies, cake/frosting, chips, etc. Even toast with butter, and our favorite combinations: sausage & hash browns, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, meat & potatoes/gravy, etc. are high carbs/high fat.) This study your sister sent you only specified that last group as "high fat". Tell her that low carb+high fat is healthy, and back it up with the Harvard study, just published last week. The link is on this forum. I found it searching Yahoo-Health. The study followed obese women for 6 months (half were high carb/low fat, the others were low carb/high fat & protein. After 6 mo., the low carbers lost significantly more pounds, more body fat, and ALL subjects' blood cholesterol levels/lipids, etc. were in the normal range.

Is this a new study, or you thinking of the new University of Cincinnati study? Please post the Harvard study link. Thanks.

Sheldon

Sheldon..

Actually, it was neither...it was the Duke study I was thinking of but I had just read something about Harvard and got my wires crossed. Sorry 'bout that!

This study made for some interesting reading, though:
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...&threadid=68823

It WAS the Univ. of Cincinatti Study! Reuters interviewed Dr. Meir Stampfer of Harvard University, who said that the study was well-conducted, but that more study would have to be done to determine the long-term effects... I guess Harvard stuck out in my mind too! Sorry for the confusion...