Nope! Because that's what insulin controls and if you don't load up on carbs, then there ISN'T the extra insulin to make the extra cholesterol, to thicken the arterial walls, or make your body store the fat as fat!
The amount of carbs that LC'ers eat just makes enough insulin to regulate the systems NORMALLY and to best efficiency.

Oh and BTW, I'M a nurse too!

I am not talking about cholesterol laying down fat I am talking about fat laying down plaque on the arterial walls. Also, how about the fact that the nervous system and brain feed on carbs and need a certain amount of them. In addition, why are carbs so bad when you consider that two thirds of the carbs ingested is needed by the brain and the nervous system. Carbs are vital in this respect.

The brain and nervous system DON'T NEED CARBS!
They're perfectly happy running off ketones!
And fat doesn't lay ANYTHING in the arteries without high amounts of carbs to make the insulin levels get higher!
Insulin also causes high blood pressure and thickens the arterial walls!


Admin note - post edited to remove inflammatory comment. Doreen

I see someone didn't read the link I provided to him yesterday.

I use to think exactly the way you did about the carb limit until we got into THIS discussion.

Perhaps if you read it, you may understand a bit more on the human body doesn't need carbs to function

Another article you may find an interesting read if you haven't seen it yet: New York Times

ummmm, fat *IS* the cholesterol floating around in our systems, 5% comes from our diets and 95% is produced by the liver. What do think cholesterol is?? This diet REDUCES cholesterol because it causes fat burning resulting in lower LDL and triglycerides and higher HDL.


The brain operates 25% more efficiently on ketones and does not need carbs to operate.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/s...01789585&EDATE=

From What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie:

When I interviewed ketosis experts, however, they universally sided with Atkins, and suggested that maybe the medical community and the media confuse ketosis with ketoacidosis, a variant of ketosis that occurs in untreated diabetics and can be fatal. ''Doctors are scared of ketosis,'' says Richard Veech, an N.I.H. researcher who studied medicine at Harvard and then got his doctorate at Oxford University with the Nobel Laureate Hans Krebs. ''They're always worried about diabetic ketoacidosis. But ketosis is a normal physiologic state. I would argue it is the normal state of man. It's not normal to have McDonald's and a delicatessen around every corner. It's normal to starve.''

Simply put, ketosis is evolution's answer to the thrifty gene. We may have evolved to efficiently store fat for times of famine, says Veech, but we also evolved ketosis to efficiently live off that fat when necessary. Rather than being poison, which is how the press often refers to ketones, they make the body run more efficiently and provide a backup fuel source for the brain. Veech calls ketones ''magic'' and has shown that both the heart and brain run 25 percent more efficiently on ketones than on blood sugar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/m...ll&position=top

I've been doing Atkins for more than three years and according to my bloodwork, I haven't been this healthy since I was in my 20s (I'm in my 50s). I'd like this Atkins skeptic to provide us with harder evidence than the OPINIONS of people who have never tried it. If Atkins ruined my health, I'd make it my life's work to inform people about it. I'd be on all the talk shows. I'd be haunting all the chat boards. I'd sue Atkins for everything he has. I'd start my own web site and do interviews with the media. I'd ask Hillary where I could hire a good ghost writer to write a book that I could claim as my own. But nobody is doing that. Where are all the victims? Can this skeptic provide us with any statistics? How many people were harmed by low carbing last year? How many people have died? Give us a few case histories. What are their names? What happened to them? In what medical journal are their cases reported? Surely the Census Bureau can provide him with this information since they know how many flush toilets every household in America has. Can this person come up with even ONE verifiable case of Atkins harming anyone in the last 20 years? I'm a journalist and I certainly haven't been able to find anyone. All I've ever encountered is shallow thinkers who parrot the uncorroborated claims that have been circulating since the 70s. Maybe Dr. Atkins has a team of black-clad commandos who spirit these people away in the dead of the night so they can't tell their stories.

Oh now that is a thought! Maybe they are in a hanger in Area 51 with the Alien's?

No wait that wouldn't work. If there were opponents of Atkin's the government would WANT them to come forward so they don't look like idiots for pushing the Food Pyramid on is

Shhhh, don't say the g word. You could be next.

LOVE IT, Bruce!!! Well said!!

My lean body mass went up. I gained 4 pounds of muscle overall without any exercise during on-going weight loss.

Infuriator,

I'm just curious - after reading all the info you've been given here so far, are you at least willing to open your mind a bit more and check into this further?

My guess is, that considering what information we were ALL fed growing up, everyone (99%? - guessing) of all low carbers were very skeptical at first. Who wouldn't be?

I have just passed 4 years, mostly on LC. The weight loss hasn't been too big because of medications & surgery and going off the plan. But my health is much better. BP always was normal 120/80 but quickly went to low normal 113/76 and has stayed there for 4 years. I have successfully come through 2 major surgeries, and blood tests pre-op each time showed excellent kidney and liver function. The cardiologist said I have "fantastic heart function".

By the way, I did Atkins back in 1972 for 6 months and got down to 145 and looked great. But I somehow didn't realize that I should have kept on eating lowcarb. Now I know that so this is my way of eating forever. And 30 years later, my kidneys and liver AND arteries are in great shape, even after 4 years of really staying LC much of the time.

It's fine to disagree with and debate each other's opinions, but personal attacks and flames are a direct violation of the Registration Agreement. I posted a warning in this thread yesterday.

I have removed some inflammatory posts.
============================

For the record, only certain cells in the mid-brain, and red blood cells MUST have glucose, since they lack mitochondria and cannot use ketones or other fatty acid derivatives. The small amounts of glucose required does not need to be consumed in the diet, since the liver can manufacture glucose quite nicely from dietary proteins, in the process of gluconeogenesis. Please review your first year physiology texts for an explanation of this process.

Doreen

It isn't flaming if it's true. I'm sorry to see that you deleted one of my messages the same day I registered, while you allowed that person to torment people for days. This is not the environment for me. At any rate, my work here is done. I'm off to my home Atkins board. Adios.