Look! Up in the Sky!
I’ve got a good one for you today. This would be troubling, if it weren’t just out and out hilarious.
You may have heard about a new study – published last week in the prestigious Archives of Internal Medicine – which concludes with the surprising information that you can eat a high carbohydrate diet and lose weight without exercising.
And I can leap tall buildings in a single bound.
All you can eat
Researchers at the University of Arkansas recruited 34 subjects with an average age of 66 years. All the subjects had impaired glucose intolerance. The 34 were divided into three groups and supplied with meals for 12 weeks. Two of the groups received a low-fat, high complex-carbohydrate diet, and the control group received a comparatively high-fat, low-carb diet (although carbs made up 45 percent of the food intake – obviously the word “low” is defined differently in this study than anywhere else in the world). All of the subjects in one of the high-carb groups participated in 45 minutes of aerobic exercise, four times each week.
The meal food portions were large; designed to supply about 150 percent of estimated energy needs. Subjects were told to eat as much as they pleased. Because all uneaten food was returned, the researchers were able to determine that there was no significant difference in total food intake among the groups.
At the end of 12 weeks, the Arkansas team found that the group that exercised lost 11 pounds on average. The non-exercising high-carb group lost 7 pounds on average. And the so-called low-carb group didn’t lose any weight at all.
Conclusion: Forget your low-carb diets. Eat all the bagels you want and you’ll lose weight – even if you don’t exercise.
Reality check
This study has three glaring problems: 1) A 12-week dietary study can’t begin to predict the long-range effects of a diet, 2) The low-carb diet wasn’t low in carbs at all, and 3) There’s no way on earth that you can eat your fill of carbs, get no exercise, and lose weight. As one eating disorder expert told the Associated Press: It “flies in the face of 100 years of data.” He predicted that recommending such a diet, combined with no exercise, would be “a public health disaster.” And this comes from someone who describes himself as an advocate of low-fat, high-carbs!
Nevertheless, the media had a “told you so” field day. And the smirking headline from Reuters Health said it all: “Revenge of the high-carb diet – ha! It works, too.”
The really amazing thing is that this study appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine, instead of the Archives of Inept Research. A casual look at the details reveals that the study was obviously designed to stack the deck so that the supposed low-carb diet would be the loser.
The high-carb diet included lots of fruits and vegetables (much more than the low-carb diet), as well as high-fiber cereal and vegetarian chili. But the menu for the low-carb group included macaroni and cheese and French fries! And on an all-you-can-eat basis!
Let’s see, which way will I lose more weight over just 12 weeks? With fruits, vegetables and high-fiber, or macaroni and cheese with supersized orders of French fries?
This is a textbook example of a junk study.
Fantasy land
The most misguided report about this research came from CBS News. In an article titled “Fighting Diabetes With Carbs,” CBS implies that the high-carb diet used in the study is a good choice for people who are pre-diabetic. Well, it’s a slightly better choice than macaroni and cheese and French fries, I’ll give it that.
The CBS report describes the high-carb diet as “Lots of bagels, lots of fruit and vegetables.” For the most part, the fruits and veggies are no problem. But bagels? It’s a rare bagel that’s not a refined carbohydrate, which means it creates a blood sugar spike, which, over time, contributes to insulin resistance, which leads to type 2 diabetes. And if your veggies include potatoes, then those starches are converted to sugar, which creates a blood sugar spike, etc., etc.
Fighting diabetes with these types of carbs is like fighting a house fire with a flame-thrower.
Dr. William J. Evans, the lead author of the Arkansas study, told Reuters Health, “If you simply reduce fat in the diet, and allow people to eat as much carbohydrates as they want, they lose weight.”
One headline called this high-carb plan the “Anti-Atkins.” You could more accurately call it Anti-Science.
To Your Good Health,
Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute
Sources:
“Effects of an Ad Libitum Low-Fat, High-Carbohydrate Diet on Body Weight, Body Composition, and Fat Distribution in Older Men and Women” Archives of Internal Medicine, Vol. 164, No. 2, 1/26/04, archinte.ama-assn.org
“Revenge of the High-Carb Diet – Ha! It Works, Too” Alison McCook, Reuters Health, 1/27/04, reutershealth.com
“Fighting Diabetes With Carbs” CBS News, 1/28/04, cbsnews.com
“Anti-Atkins, High-Carb Diet Tested” CBS News, 1/28/04, cbsnews.com
