Low-carb diets can *increase* your risk of mortality by up to 38%, a new study finds

[Corals]

On the abstract the worst LCD they could come up with had a HR of 1.18. That’s not that bad for eating unhealthy!

And the healthier LCD HR was 0.95!

I see it as a quite positive article for LCD.

For what it’s worth!

[PaulL]

I’ve been quoting a line supposedly uttered by Austin Bradford-Hill: “If the hazard ratio isn’t at least 2.0, the study isn’t worth getting out of bed for.”

[cooked]

“Low Carb Diet” this seems to pop up in studies hidden behind a paywall. Where it isn’t hidden, I have seen up to 300 gm daily described as being “Low Carb”. Forget about it.

[Shinita]

I just most realize this forum and especially carnivore changed own thinking… Normally I always think and write about the definition of low-carb in this country, the one that people with diabetes gets. 150-160g or below. But even that is less than 50% for most people, way less for many… But it is a definition. I don’t have the vaguest idea what “low-fat” means. I have a gram definition for that but it’s my personal one. To me it’s always about grams, not percentages. If I eat 300g carbs, it’s firmly high-carb, the highest possible for me even if it’s only 30%… The same with the other macros.

But 50% carbs (or even near) is definitely high, no matter how we look at it (if it’s not very severe starvation but that’s a very special case). It’s the MAJOR macro!
But it doesn’t matter which is the major macro. Mine always was fat and I still ate high-carb.

So. I understand if 160g is considered low-carb as it’s what people do here - but I don’t like that studies use that with whatever food choices and try to draw conclusions about “low-carb diets”. And it often happens. Well I don’t like when studies and people try to say one of the other diet is good or not. Not only because the latter is individual (and depends on the actual food items as well) but because there is no single low-carb or keto or vegetarian diet. There is great variety in them. And they may try to extrapolate but it won’t work. There are several mayor problems. I may be interested in hearing about a single food item and its effect on human bodies but some general diet in some more or less shady study? Nope, it gives me no information to aid my decision making. Sometimes I wonder if such studies are to be some vague guide for the population, for people who don’t know better or for schools or whatnots who feed many people, not like they are good enough for that… I obviously can’t help them in my very individual case with my experiences and the very good feedback from my body.

But very low-carb is popular nowadays, maybe not wildly but it’s a thing, even carnivore is that, wow. 10 years ago I barely saw anything. 20 years ago I had no idea people do that… So don’t we need studies with REALLY low-carb and some good food choices, obviously just low-carb isn’t good, no matter if some horrible fatty gruel is fed to mice or humans… Though humans don’t get that treatment but the food still may be not good for them (maybe not so good for humans in general, I try not to talk about individual differences so much, obviously studies can’t do much about that! except if they just let health-conscious people figure out their best food and study them for a few decades afterwards… yeah, it hardly will happen).

I have read about bad things about keto and paleo and they often blamed items I didn’t even
ever ate… These are pretty wide diets and “low-carb” is even much much wider. IDK if I use the word right but it’s understandable I hope. There are zillion different kinds of keto and paleo. At least keto is usually pretty low-carb and that’s a big unifying thing in keto styles (not just because of ketosis but the very low amount leads to cutting out some possibly very bad items) but they are still pretty different especially if one doesn’t get much benefits from mere ketosis and avoiding high-carb items.

I have seen up to 300 gm daily described as being “Low Carb”.

What. 160 is the highest I accept. That is actually lower than most people’s high-carb diets - but some people manage to eat carby food all the time below that, it’s not that hard. But 300g? Where on earth is that low? Yeah, HCLF can produce bigger numbers but it’s still a ton. I ate grains, potatoes, fruits and sweets galore and it barely reached that. It’s very much carby food. Not enough for satiation though, that’s why people need fat and protein too…

I looked up the data about the diet of Hungarians in 2014. Only one group, growing teen boys managed to get a higher than 300g carbs a day average. The average adult men eat less than that, in every age group and women eat even less. Yes, it’s because we eat much fat but it’s pretty normal to eat much fat, it’s tasty and the available food often has it galore… So those 300g is low-carb studies are for people on HCLF… Well it may be informative for someone I suppose. Especially now that low-fat is pushed on people… I still would want a group with higher fat in those cases and less carbs.

[Hari]

I’m reading Big Fat Surprise and uh, yeah, there absolutely is an agenda against low carb (or high fat). Blame Ancel Keys, blame habit and entropy, blame corporate and political greed, and blame science for literally refusing to publicly admit women and men are physiologically very different.

[skeptic888]

Yet another study not looking at low carb diets…50% carbs is not lowcarb…

[ffskier]

What I found out, keep in mind I did not pay Wiley (owners of the Journal of Internal Medicine, or JIM) to review the entire published study. I can only look at what they have made available for free and do my own research.
Here is a basic summary:
JIM is ranked 9th on the journal rankings (internal medicine). The lancet being number 1 in the world
371,159 subjects tracked for 23.5 years
Age 50-71 years old.
Peking University School of Health. I have no idea if this is a good school or a bad school.
The scientists involved in this study all seem to work on public policy stuff. One could argue that this is their agenda.
Total deaths: 165,698 during the period recorded. I do not know the significance of this number as to whether it is high or low compared to the general population.
A low-carb diet was associated with the highest percentage of early deaths… What is their definition of a low-carb diet, and is it valid for keto or carnivores?
-There was a 38% higher risk for an unhealthy low-carb diet. Again, clear definitions would be helpful.
The risk was slightly lower for a healthy low-carb diet, but still much higher than low-fat.
-Replacing 3% of energy from saturated fat with any macronutrient reduces mortality risk.
-Maximum lifespan was associated with a low-fat diet.
-Mortality was lower by 18%.
-Cancer was lower by 18%.
-Cardiovascular risk was lower by 16%.

No mention of protein.

Some of the other large studies, such as the Nurses Health Study and the Health Professional Follow-Up Study, and, to some extent, the blue zones, have shown some similarities.
The maximum lifespan seems to be at 65% carb intake in blue zone research. This is an assumption that diet is the leading cause of health and death.

Take this study for what you will. It is certainly not definitive. It may be suggestive at best. I am 100% certain that we do not know what the best diet is that can extend life and health. Short term maybe, long term not so sure. There are too many variables to control over a long time, and for ethical reasons, it would never be approved. What passes for good public health may be, in the long run, detrimental to our overall health. However, the opposite is also possible and should not be dismissed because it does not fit with our views.

[coopdawg]

I wouldn’t even wipe my own arse with that study…good job too, seeing as it is digital.

That would probably mess up my screen…

[cvkemp]

I am 76 and I have been a heavy meat eater my whole life. I have also been someone that eats lots of vegetables and fruits. As for as bread and desserts go I have always been someone that ate desserts holidays and bread as for sandwiches that I had mostly for lunch.
I didn’t find my present lifestyle until September 2022. I am someone that has never been hospitalized, and since finding my new lifestyle have managed to become prescription drug free after at 40 years taking blood pressure medication. I have my doctors shaking their heads trying to understand how I can go against the medical books recommended ways and be doing so well.

[kib1]

I think the problem with all of these is that they’re epidemiological. It would obviously be logistically impossible to get an accurate reporting of what people Actually ate for 23.5 years, but I also think that people’s bias plays into this a lot more than is accounted for. I went through what I ate YESTERDAY. And gave myself an A rating and thumbs up for following my protocol. Coffee with cream, some cheese and a few pickles, and a steak. Awesome! … And then remembered that I had a glass of some sort of synthetically sweetened fizzy wine product while watching Moto GP that probably had 25 carbs of sugar in it. And I said I wasn’t going to snack, but in reality I had a small bowl of nuts in the afternoon. And after dinner I ate the remainder of a box of blackberries, more than the few I usually might have, because they were going to go bad. That’s ONE day where my quick “A Rating” turned into a C-. So, ask me what I ate for the past 23 years. (And now add in a communist nanny state government that’s been known for policies like enforced abortion for those breaking the rules. Oh yes, I’m absolutely going to scour my memory banks so I can report behavior I interpret as bad. Ahem.)

[ffskier]

I agree with you. However, you could also say the same about most other diets or eating protocols in so-called studies. They all lack any proper, true scientific vigor or inquiry over a long period of time. The short term is a different story. We see benefits in many different short-term protocols, such as intermittent fasting, keto, and carnivore, for example. Nonetheless, we really do not know, on a long-term basis, if our health will be compromised or optimized. Fasting is a prime example. We all do it or have done it. Yet there is this belief because a very long time ago we fasted; it must be valid in today’s world and on a long-term basis, done every day. Of the four biggest studies done on fasting, none were done on humans. Two studies were done on mice, specifically bread, for this purpose, and both of the mice studies did show an increase in lifespan of about 40%. Dr. Fung said the equivalent fast would be about 14 days in human terms. Fung uses IF in the short term. Yet mice studies of this type with genetically modified DNA rarely do the same results transfer to humans. The other two studies were done on primates, who are closest to humans. They were done at two different universities in the USA. Mixed results. No extension of lifespan, and once stopped, died rather quickly. What about feasting?

We often rely on our experts to validate our choices. But they all cherry-pick their studies because it advances their cause. This would include selling pills, potions, programs, books, and lectures. Another example is Dr. DiNicolantonio’s book, The Salt Fix. I read this book twice. Yes, those of us who are keto or carnivores may need more salt. Most of his book is junk and poorly researched. “We all have a reliable salt thermostat.” He states, “Most people will settle for about 3,000-4,000 mg of sodium per day,” yet this has been shown not to be true. Even on page 32, he claims eighteenth-century Europeans consumed up to 28,000 mg of sodium daily. Free-flowing salt has not been around for a long time. He also presumes that we are hard-wired for a fixed, narrow range of sodium that is guided by our taste buds. Yet again, he states we can adapt to different levels of sodium. I could go on, but I will not. Just too much poorly researched misinformation.

I would urge you all to do your own research on yourself, experiment, and test what works for you. Question all research good or bad.