What's Better? Low Carb Diet or Low Fat Diet

Obesity and type-2 diabetes are manifestations of insulin resistance, which functionally can be regarded as carbohydrate intolerance. As with any other food intolerance, the primary treatment should be to limit the intake of that food category below the level that causes symptoms. If the majority of Americans are consuming too much carbohydrate relative to their tolerance, a perfectly reasonable solution would be to recommend that people consume less sugar and starch.
There is a compelling body of research that shows low-carbohydrate diets have broad-spectrum favorable effects on obesity and type-2 diabetes. In a head-to-head comparison with more traditional low-fat diets, low-carbohydrate diets consistently lead to greater weight and fat loss, improved glucose and insulin levels, improved HDL (good) cholesterol, decreased triglycerides, improved blood pressure, and decreases in inflammation markers.

Although low-carbohydrate diets are often regarded as unbalanced, consider that during the majority of human history people had access to much lower levels than we are consuming now. The reality is that people vary widely in their tolerance to carbohydrate. Those who are carbohydrate intolerant include most people with excess body fat, metabolic syndrome, or type-2 diabetes. That’s probably close to 100 million people in the U.S. alone.


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