Low Carb Diets and Health

Are low carb diets good or bad for your health? And how do they compare with high carb diets?

The American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and most responsible scientists recommend a healthy, well balanced diet that’s about 50 – 60% high quality, low glycemic carbohydrates. Any diet outside this range would be considered either “low carb” (at 3-30% carbs) or “high carb” (at 70-80% carbs).

If your health is important to you, your diet must be a healthy one. The low carb Atkins diet is not, because it’s too high in saturated animal fats, which raise your risk of heart disease. Red meat also increases the incidence of colon and prostate cancer. Low carb diets in general are too low in fiber, fruits, nuts, beans, whole grains and vegetables, which help protect against heart disease, stroke and many kinds of cancers.

Although diets high in low glycemic carbohydrates can be good for you, studies show that low fat diets can be deficient in important fatty acids and, sometimes, even in good quality protein.

According to recent research, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the heart healthy, safest and most effective answer to permanent weight loss is somewhere between the extremes of low carb/high fat diets and low fat/high carb diets. For healthy, permanent weight loss, you need to eat less, exercise more and consistently improve the quality of your nutrition. That’s it in a nutshell. And, there are healthy, doable ways to accomplish this.

For example, to begin with, you could lose 10 to 15 pounds in a year, keep it off and be much healthier for it, by just eliminating one cup of coffee with one ounce of cream and walking one mile, a day. That would be a good start on the path to a good healthy body and good weight management.

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Note: The information contained on this website is not intended to be prescriptive. Any attempt to diagnose or treat an illness should come under the direction of a physician who is familiar with nutritional therapy.