Eat carbs, die young(er)

[tenpoundsleft]

Substantial study, over 7 years, and over 135,000 people in 18 countries.

Fewer carbs, more fat = longer life
New Study Favors Fat Over Carbs


New Study Favors Fat Over Carbs






By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
SEPTEMBER 8, 2017
High carbohydrate intake is associated with a higher risk of mortality, and high fat intake with a lower risk, researchers report.

An international team of scientists studied diet and mortality in 135,335 people between 35 and 70 years old in 18 countries, following them for an average of more than seven years. Diet information depended on self-reports, and the scientists controlled for factors including age, sex, smoking, physical activity and body mass index. The study is in The Lancet.

Compared with people who ate the lowest 20 percent of carbohydrates, those who ate the highest 20 percent had a 28 percent increased risk of death. But high carbohydrate intake was not associated with cardiovascular death.

People with the highest 20 percent in total fat intake — an average of 35.3 percent of calories from fat — had about a 23 percent reduced risk of death compared with the lowest 20 percent (an average of 10.6 percent of calories from fat). Consuming higher saturated fat, polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fat were all associated with lower mortality. Higher fat diets were also associated with a lower risk of stroke.



“Guidelines recommend low saturated fat, and some recommend really low amounts,” said a co-author, Andrew Mente, an epidemiologist at McMaster University in Ontario. “Our study, which captures intake at the lowest levels, shows that this may be harmful.”


Current federal guidelines recommend a diet that provides no more than 35 percent of calories from fat.

 

[Morefyah]

Hmm interesting..
Obviously not all carbs are created equal and all processed carbs should be avoided or eaten in moderation. There's nothing wrong with Complex carbohydrates. They are a natural and tasty energy source that I won't be given up anytime soon.

 

[tenpoundsleft]

Hmm interesting..
Obviously not all carbs are created equal and all processed carbs should be avoided or eaten in moderation. There's nothing wrong with Complex carbohydrates. They are a natural and tasty energy source that I won't be given up anytime soon.

Agree, obviously, but kinda hard to track that detail across 135,000 people.

 

[Widowermaker]

Highest 20% of fat or carb intake, I can only think of the people who buzz around walmart on scooters

 

[tenpoundsleft]

Highest 20% of fat or carb intake, I can only think of the people who buzz around walmart on scooters

I think a certain BMI automatically qualifies you for a handicapper plate at DMV - I'm around 30 so maybe I should apply?

 

[17Alpha]

Diet information depended on self-reports

Huge margin of error.

 

[tenpoundsleft]

Huge margin of error.

Get funding for feeding 135,000 people over a 7 year period would be a tall order.

At least they realized that fat and protein is good - this must irk a lot of folks to no end. Want to buy stock in a corn farm, or in Coke?

 

[Docd187123]

Get funding for feeding 135,000 people over a 7 year period would be a tall order.

At least they realized that fat and protein is good - this must irk a lot of folks to no end. Want to buy stock in a corn farm, or in Coke?

They haven't shown carbs are bad. It was a prospective cohort study so it followed a specific group of people around. Same kind of study that supposedly finds viagara use to increase your risk for developing skin cancer...

 

[rated_rko]

Protein and fat is good. Processed carbs terrible for you. Good complex carbs is good but in moderation and pending your body type as it does then into glucose so it could be bad if your diabetic or prone to it. But vegetable carbs nothing wrong with that. Sugar is the devil

 

[Docd187123]

Protein and fat is good. Processed carbs terrible for you. Good complex carbs is good but in moderation and pending your body type as it does then into glucose so it could be bad if your diabetic or prone to it. But vegetable carbs nothing wrong with that. Sugar is the devil

You have no idea what you're talking about besides repeating dogma

 

[rated_rko]

You have no idea what you're talking about besides repeating dogma

Yes I do....lol

 

[Docd187123]

Yes I do....lol

No, you don't....

 

[tenpoundsleft]

Guys, can we stop the online insult ping-pong game? You're OT.

 

[Docd187123]

There's not much to talk about. This study proves nothing and is barely even suggestive of anything.

1) the main focus of this study was in low and middle income countries. Countries like Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, China, etc. many people living in these countries have more important things to do than worry about carb and fat ratios....like finding and affording enough food to feed themselves and their families without starving. People in these conditions eat whatever is available, which tends to be cheap, nutrient poor foods. This doesn't show that higher fats help you live longer, it shows more that if you have enough money to afford a well balanced diet and/or you're not poverty stricken you'll live longer.

2) this is an observational cohort study. It basically follows people around and relies on diet questionnaires. Hence there is no way in hell this study can show causation. Furthermore, I don't know about anyone else but I don't see diet questionnaires for more than 100,000 people as having a high degree of accuracy.

3) if you didn't dig into the study a little bit you would never know that the high carb diets they refer to are people who are eating up to 77% of their caloric intake from carbohydrates. The minimum carb intake was 46%. So when they say eating high carbs increases risk of death by 28% vs eating low carbs, they really mean that risk of death was 28% lower if you eat 46% of your calories from carbs. Want to know what that means in laymen terms? That the healthiest people in this group, or the ones with the lowest mortality rates at least, were the people eating damn near half their daily calories from carbs. That kind of disagrees with your comment from above about eating less carbs makes you live longer bc I would love to know which one of us on the board here eats 77% of their daily calories in carbs???

4) they said a high fat diet decreased the risk of cardiovascular events and death. What most reading this don't know is their high fat diet was only 35% of cals from fat. Right off the bat that should strike you as strange...why is a high fat diet only 50% of the total macro make up compared to a high carb diet? The high fat diet should have been 70+% as well or high carb should have been 35% like high fat. At 35% of calories coming from fat, this diet isn't even a keto diet lolololol.

Anyway, the researchers found a link that those who ate the most fat, 35%, had a 23% better chance of not dying than those who at low fat or 10% and no differences in chance to have cardiovascular events. But going above or below the two extremes, above 35% or below 10%, did show that fat could become a problem meaning the title should be changed to too much fat can also cause early death.

5) The study authors themselves even warn that:

This study "does not provide support for very low carbohydrate diets. A certain amount of carbohydrate is necessary to meet short-term energy demands during physical activity, and so moderate intakes (eg 50 to 55% energy) are likely to be more appropriate than either very high or very low carbohydrate intake".