11 ms·

Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma

84 points by sasoon 13y ago

seivan 13y ago
As my healthiest, I was on Low Carb High Fat. It all went away when I went to Asia... :/
unoti 13y ago
Fat is not the enemy. Fat that you eat can be converted handily into energy. An overabundance of carbs is the enemy! It's hilarious to me that people who think nothing of downing a 48 oz Dr Pepper, then getting a refill, after a dinner featuring potatoes, pasta, and bread will thumb their nose at having a 12 oz glass of whole milk. Those carbs, especially when consumed late in the day, go straight into fat. The nutrition information we were given in school is mostly a load of baloney, and puts me in mind of the cargo cult science Richard Feynman discussion from the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6543791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6543791 . It's interesting how much of this nutrition information passes without being scientifically proven.
- bluecalm 13y ago
  I am usually not quick to jump on conspiracy bandwagon but I really think it's malice at this point not incompetence.
- danmaz74 13y ago
  "Fat that you eat can be converted handily into energy" What is this supposed to mean? That an overabundance of carbs is bad, while an overabundance of fat isn't? This is getting ridiculous.
  - aguynamedrich 13y ago
    I didn't see anything in there advocating overabundance on either side, simply the irony of selling an alternative to one overabundance to a mass of people willing to engage in an equally or similarly harmful overabundance of something else.
  - unoti 13y ago
    By "Fat that you eat can be converted into energy" I meant that just because you eat fat doesn't mean it's going right to your belly or hips. And a lot of people are terrified of consuming 5 grams of fat, but think nothing of consuming 400 carbs in the form of bread, pasta, and sugar. I'm advocating an approach based on whole foods, less sugar, carbs only from wholesome sources like oatmeal and whole grains. I'm just trying to say people focus too much on fat.
    - danmaz74 13y ago
      Many people focus too much on fat. Many others, though, focus too much on carbs. What worries me is seeing a myth spread, the myth that you can eat as much fat as you want as long as you don't eat carbs: That's just not true, and dangerous to tell.
  - np422 13y ago
    This is a somewhat interesting anecdote ... http://live.smashthefat.com/the-21-day-5000-calorie-carb-challenge/ http://live.smashthefat.com/the-21-day-5000-calorie-carb-cha... tl/dr; Guy eats 5800 kcal every day of fat for 3 weeks, gains 1.3 kg and loses about an inch from his waistline, same guy eats 5800 kcal from carbs every day for 3 weeks, gains 7.1 kg and about 10 cm on the waistline. Exercise is supposed to be the similar in both cases. Yes, it's just an anecdote, but an interesting one. And imho a reason to be a little humble about the things we think we know about how the human body responds to different kinds of foods. More research is needed.
    - danmaz74 13y ago
      I'm not the one claiming to know the truth ("fats are good! carbs are bad!")
- cncool 13y ago
  "especially when consumed late in the day" That's a myth.
  - unoti 13y ago
    Wow, apparently so. Thanks for telling me about this!
- gngeal 13y ago
  Fat is not the enemy. My once-inflamed pancreas says otherwise. :-) I guess there's no one-size-fits-all solution to that.
bluecalm 13y ago
Loading up beacon and eggs while putting butter in your coffee and refusing slices of bread (whole grain of course) and then explaining you do it for health reasons is priceless ;) On serious note, evidence is there it's time to at least tell people they have a choice. Low carb did wonders to my family members (fat whole life, skinny and feeling great now) and when I keep at it (instead of succumbing to sugar addiction) I fell way better as well. It's safe, many (maybe even most) people function much better while eating this way and there is no way you get fat on it.
robabbott 13y ago
Ok, bacon, sausage, and egg omelette it is for dinner, then!
- TomGullen 13y ago
  Sounds like a good meal, I regularly eat those foods. When I was losing the most weight, for dinner sometimes I was eating 500g fried mince meat, covered in about 100-200g of cheese. Very filling lol! Diet food can be delicious and grimy.
gdilla 13y ago
For some easy to read, well summarized evidence of high fat diets, Science journalist Gary Taubes has a few books on the subject http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259?tag=top10new-20 http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259?tag...
StacyC 13y ago
My wife and I have been on a very low carb / high fat diet for the last 4 months, and we have never felt better. Eating lots of eggs, bacon, steak, butter, some veggies and fruit. We both lost weight too. Also cut out processed food, sugar and grains — bread, pasta, rice, cereal — basically a ketogenic diet, which adapts the body to burning fat more readily. We both have also noticed that we just feel more mental clarity, more energy and no cravings for junk food. It is amazing. I hope this message gets through in the U.S. eventually.
- nawitus 13y ago
  >Eating lots of eggs, bacon, steak The problem with that is that the consumption of animal products is unethical. You should consider switching to a vegan low-carb diet to decrease suffering.
  - rcconf 13y ago
    How much suffering am I going to reduce from a low carb vegan diet? How well does this diet work for someone like me who needs 3400 calories to build muscle? Unethical is a strange term of eating animal products. I don't think this "ethical" diet is going to work for me.
    - nawitus 13y ago
      'How much suffering am I going to reduce from a low carb vegan diet?' I don't know. 'How well does this diet work for someone like me who needs 3400 calories to build muscle?' Well. 'Unethical is a strange term of eating animal products.' I don't find it strange to call the slaughter of animals and mistreatment of animals unethical.
      - TomGullen 13y ago
        Admittedly I do think it probably is unethical to eat animals. However one thing I've always wanted to ask a vegetarian, these animals I'm eating would not exist without demand for them. So so long as I make more efforts to buy organic and well treated animals - is this still unethical? If I had a choice, be born as a chicken on an organic farm or not exist at all I'd definitely pick the chicken option.
swombat 13y ago
I've been happily low-carb for the last couple of years or so. It's worked great for me. Occasionally I relapse (hmm, chocolate), and every time I do for any substantial period, I see the effect on my weight. So long as I stick to low-carb, I don't have to worry about what I eat... just eat as much as I feel like, whenever I feel like - but low carb.
felixfurtak 13y ago
I would highly recommend watching the BBC documentary "The Men Who Made Us Fat". This reaches broadly the same conclusions. Fat is fairly innocuous, but the real danger food is Sugar, and artificial sweeteners tend to make things worse.
- swombat 13y ago
  Why do artificial sweeteners make things worse? Are 2 little sweetener pills in my coffee really worse than two cubes of sugar?
  - TomGullen 13y ago
    I don't know too much about it but when I was looking at sweeteners to see if they would work on my keto diet I found that they are very high carb generally.
  - unoti 13y ago
    It seems possible to me. I know Sucralose is actually made from sugar as a starting point, then they chemically alter it. As for can it be harmful, maybe so: "A Duke University study[35] funded by the Sugar Association found evidence that doses of Splenda of between 100 and 1000 mg/kg, containing sucralose at 1.1 to 11 mg/kg (compare to the FDA Acceptable Daily Intake of 5 mg/kg), reduced the amount of fecal microflora in rats by up to 50%, increased the pH level in the intestines, contributed to increases in body weight, and increased levels of P-glycoprotein (P-gp).[36] These effects have not been reported in humans." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose#Other_potential_effects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose#Other_potential_effec...
nawitus 13y ago
The problem with low-carb diets is that most people use it as an excuse to consume animal products. A vegan low-carb diet is fine.
- jonnathanson 13y ago
  Other than ethical reasons, what's the issue here? Not being snarky; just legitimately curious. I would love to see some hard science and longitudinal studies behind the ostensible benefits of a vegan diet, or the drawbacks of a diet high -- but not overly high -- in animal protein. I realize cooked animal protein and preserved/processed animal protein contains carcinogens, and that too much protein (regardless of source) can cause a variety of problems ranging from kidney impairment to gout. But plant-based sources have their costs as well (phytoestrogens, antinutrients, oxalates, etc.). I've never felt better in my life, and my various lab stats have never looked better, than when I went on a Paleo-esque high fat, low carb diet that was quite rich in animal sources, but which also contained a healthful amount of vegetables (and no fruit). I took the diet as far as ketosis, and after breaking through the ramp-up hurdles, I settled into it and got into fantastic shape. Anecdotal, yes. But I've struggled with "skinny-fatness" for much of my life, and this particular combination made a remarkable improvement on my physique without any changes in my exercise routine. Maybe my caloric consumption shifted a bit, but if anything, it probably shifted north.
  - nawitus 13y ago
    Ethical reasons are enough.
- TomGullen 13y ago
  As long as you get enough protein and fat. It's a lot harder to get those sources of protein and fat when you exclude meat (do-able of course but you're a lot more restricted)
  - nawitus 13y ago
    It's easy to get enough protein and fat on a vegan diet.
NoPiece 13y ago
So when people say, "the science is decided," remember that science almost unanimously pushed high carb low fat diets for decades before people challenged it.
gabemart 13y ago
This article misrepresents the underlying research and seems to invent some facts from whole cloth. > Sweden has become the first Western nation to develop national dietary guidelines that reject the popular low-fat diet dogma in favor of low-carb high-fat nutrition advice. Where is the evidence that Sweden has developed "national dietary guidelines"? All the sources link back to the paper [1][2] entitled "Dietary Treatment for Obesity". Clearly, dietary treatment for obesity is not the same as national dietary guidelines, and the conclusions of a paper are not the same as government policy. Further, the paper found low-carb diets more effective for weight loss only in the first six months. Long term, it found no difference in the effectiveness of low-fat vs. low carb. To quote from google translate: > In the long run there are no differences in efficacy between weight loss tips on strict and moderate carbohydrate diet, low-fat diets, högproteinkost, Mediterranean diet, diet focuses on low-glycemic load diet or a high proportion of monounsaturated fats. Further, on the "diet doctor" website, under the section "Warnings Against LCHF Dismissed" [3], it quotes the study criticizing some studies that concluded low-carb diets are unhealthy for not adequately distinguishing between different classes of low-carb diets, specifically those high in fast-food and those not. This may be a valid criticism, but is not the same as endorsing the long-term health of a low-carb diet. The "diet doctor" concludes "We simply don’t know" about the long-term effects of various macronutrient compositions on health, which is fair, but this is a long way short of the national government of Sweden endorsing high-fat low-carb diets as unequivocally healthier than high-carb low-fat diets. It may appear that I'm against low-carb diets; I'm not. I just think this is a very poor and misleading article. [1] [pdf warning] http://www.sbu.se/upload/Publikationer/Content0/1/Mat_vid_fetma_218-2013.pdf http://www.sbu.se/upload/Publikationer/Content0/1/Mat_vid_fe... [2] [google translation of conclusions] http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&prev=_dd&u=http://www.sbu.se/sv/Publicerat/Gul/Mat-vid-fetma-/ http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&prev... [3] http://www.dietdoctor.com/swedish-expert-committee-low-carb-diet-effective-weight-loss http://www.dietdoctor.com/swedish-expert-committee-low-carb-...
- coldcode 13y ago
  As my other comment said, it's very hard to build any diet that works for everyone. But that doesn't stop people from trying.
shaunrussell 13y ago
I've lost 48 pounds in the last 2 years (188 => 140) by simply cutting all carbs and most processed foods out of my diet. No change in habits, no additional exercise. My cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood were good to begin with, but are now EXCELLENT. My typical day I eat 3-4 eggs, half avocado, 1/2lb of red meat/chicken/fish, 2 servings of greens, 1 serving of vegetables, 2-3 servings of cheese. Never felt better. It is frustrating because people never believe me and just tell me that I have a fast metabolism.
coldcode 13y ago
Everyone's an expert on food. If I ate what all the different experts told me to eat I'd be on a different diet every day. I bet a different group of nutritional scientists would take a look at these studies and find a completely different conclusion (and likely have). There is nothing special about Sweden to make me believe they know more about food than any other country. It's great if you feel good with your diet, as it's your body. But it's a single data point. Trying to build a diet that works for everyone is like trying to find a single programming language for everyone. A diet that works for you over a few months isn't enough time to discover its true benefits, just as a terrible diet's effects aren't obvious potentially for much of a lifetime. There are plenty of people around the world's whose diet is not high fat, low carb (the Mediterranean for one) but still remain healthy so that isn't a great indicator that there is strictly one way to eat. I took enough biochemistry and nutritional chemistry classes in college to know how complicated our processing of food is, and how difficult it is to make guidelines for how people should eat.
elrzn 13y ago
Wow at the low-carb comments. Way to reject a dogma with another dogma. I have a daily intake of 400g of carbohydrates. According to you I'd be overwheight and dying of diabetes, cancer, metabolic syndrome and whatnot. Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it. No need to blame food but yourselves.
- Dewie 13y ago
  It's not dogma if it actually works for them (though it might be dogma if they are very insistent that it definitely will work for everyone). > Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it. No need to blame food but yourselves. That sounds like a nice middle ground, but there's no reason to take a middle ground if something more radical works better for you.
  - tensor 13y ago
    I fail to see how this latest fad diet is any different from any previous fad diet. In every case, people chanted "but it works for me!!!!!" There is way more hyperbole behind these diets than science as far as I've seen.
- unoti 13y ago
  I think it's actually different for different people. My understanding is that someone with a high body fat percent can sustain quite a bit of an exercise regimen for a while with low carbs, consuming their fat for energy. But eventually as their body fat percent comes down, they'll need to supplement their diet with carbs to maintain their energy level for the same exercise. The P90X diet program is based on this idea, with 3 phases of the diet with very low carbs in the first phase, medium carbs in the second phase, and more carbs in the third phase. So maybe you're both right...
- TomGullen 13y ago
  > According to you I'd be overwheight and dying of diabetes, cancer, metabolic syndrome and whatnot. Nope, not sure where you get that idea from. > Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it. So I can eat a few chicken breasts a day, and then 1,500 kcal of mars bars? Sounds great! Alternatively if you're trying to lose weight, you can simply cut out the sugar. Exercise is of course important for a host of reasons, but for weight loss it's probably just about the hardest way to do it. I'm in despair when my severely overweight friend relays the advice from her doctor and nutritionist: "Eat less calories, and get on the treadmill". Doesn't sound fun, or easy at all. There are other ways.
Zolomon 13y ago
Being a Swede in Sweden, last I heard was that everyone was giving critique to LCHF due to high risks of cancer[1][2]. [1] http://www.kostdoktorn.se/aftonbladet-varnar-for-lchf-cancer http://www.kostdoktorn.se/aftonbladet-varnar-for-lchf-cancer [2] http://www.metro.se/nyheter/lakare-varnar-for-lchf-cancer/EVHmbs!laLUhkb5LnZKA/ http://www.metro.se/nyheter/lakare-varnar-for-lchf-cancer/EV...
pasbesoin 13y ago
The People's Pharmacy (well regarded U.S. public radio show): Show 895 The Great Cholesterol Myth http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2013/03/09/895-the-great-cholesterol-myth/ http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2013/03/09/895-the-great-chol... Further recent discussion on Wisconsin Public Radio: http://www.wpr.org/shows/peoples-pharmacy-special-pledge-drive-edition http://www.wpr.org/shows/peoples-pharmacy-special-pledge-dri...
mtdewcmu 13y ago
Isn't switching from low-fat to low-carb just trading one dogma for another?

84 points by sasoon 13y ago

As my healthiest, I was on Low Carb High Fat. It all went away when I went to Asia... :/

unoti 13y ago

Fat is not the enemy. Fat that you eat can be converted handily into energy. An overabundance of carbs is the enemy! It's hilarious to me that people who think nothing of downing a 48 oz Dr Pepper, then getting a refill, after a dinner featuring potatoes, pasta, and bread will thumb their nose at having a 12 oz glass of whole milk. Those carbs, especially when consumed late in the day, go straight into fat. The nutrition information we were given in school is mostly a load of baloney, and puts me in mind of the cargo cult science Richard Feynman discussion from the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6543791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6543791 . It's interesting how much of this nutrition information passes without being scientifically proven.

bluecalm 13y ago
I am usually not quick to jump on conspiracy bandwagon but I really think it's malice at this point not incompetence.
danmaz74 13y ago
"Fat that you eat can be converted handily into energy" What is this supposed to mean? That an overabundance of carbs is bad, while an overabundance of fat isn't? This is getting ridiculous.
- aguynamedrich 13y ago
  I didn't see anything in there advocating overabundance on either side, simply the irony of selling an alternative to one overabundance to a mass of people willing to engage in an equally or similarly harmful overabundance of something else.
- unoti 13y ago
  By "Fat that you eat can be converted into energy" I meant that just because you eat fat doesn't mean it's going right to your belly or hips. And a lot of people are terrified of consuming 5 grams of fat, but think nothing of consuming 400 carbs in the form of bread, pasta, and sugar. I'm advocating an approach based on whole foods, less sugar, carbs only from wholesome sources like oatmeal and whole grains. I'm just trying to say people focus too much on fat.
  - danmaz74 13y ago
    Many people focus too much on fat. Many others, though, focus too much on carbs. What worries me is seeing a myth spread, the myth that you can eat as much fat as you want as long as you don't eat carbs: That's just not true, and dangerous to tell.
- np422 13y ago
  This is a somewhat interesting anecdote ... http://live.smashthefat.com/the-21-day-5000-calorie-carb-challenge/ http://live.smashthefat.com/the-21-day-5000-calorie-carb-cha... tl/dr; Guy eats 5800 kcal every day of fat for 3 weeks, gains 1.3 kg and loses about an inch from his waistline, same guy eats 5800 kcal from carbs every day for 3 weeks, gains 7.1 kg and about 10 cm on the waistline. Exercise is supposed to be the similar in both cases. Yes, it's just an anecdote, but an interesting one. And imho a reason to be a little humble about the things we think we know about how the human body responds to different kinds of foods. More research is needed.
  - danmaz74 13y ago
    I'm not the one claiming to know the truth ("fats are good! carbs are bad!")
cncool 13y ago
"especially when consumed late in the day" That's a myth.
- unoti 13y ago
  Wow, apparently so. Thanks for telling me about this!
gngeal 13y ago
Fat is not the enemy. My once-inflamed pancreas says otherwise. :-) I guess there's no one-size-fits-all solution to that.

bluecalm 13y ago

Loading up beacon and eggs while putting butter in your coffee and refusing slices of bread (whole grain of course) and then explaining you do it for health reasons is priceless ;) On serious note, evidence is there it's time to at least tell people they have a choice. Low carb did wonders to my family members (fat whole life, skinny and feeling great now) and when I keep at it (instead of succumbing to sugar addiction) I fell way better as well. It's safe, many (maybe even most) people function much better while eating this way and there is no way you get fat on it.

robabbott 13y ago

Ok, bacon, sausage, and egg omelette it is for dinner, then!

TomGullen 13y ago
Sounds like a good meal, I regularly eat those foods. When I was losing the most weight, for dinner sometimes I was eating 500g fried mince meat, covered in about 100-200g of cheese. Very filling lol! Diet food can be delicious and grimy.

gdilla 13y ago

For some easy to read, well summarized evidence of high fat diets, Science journalist Gary Taubes has a few books on the subject http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259?tag=top10new-20 http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259?tag...

StacyC 13y ago

My wife and I have been on a very low carb / high fat diet for the last 4 months, and we have never felt better. Eating lots of eggs, bacon, steak, butter, some veggies and fruit. We both lost weight too. Also cut out processed food, sugar and grains — bread, pasta, rice, cereal — basically a ketogenic diet, which adapts the body to burning fat more readily. We both have also noticed that we just feel more mental clarity, more energy and no cravings for junk food. It is amazing. I hope this message gets through in the U.S. eventually.

nawitus 13y ago
>Eating lots of eggs, bacon, steak The problem with that is that the consumption of animal products is unethical. You should consider switching to a vegan low-carb diet to decrease suffering.
- rcconf 13y ago
  How much suffering am I going to reduce from a low carb vegan diet? How well does this diet work for someone like me who needs 3400 calories to build muscle? Unethical is a strange term of eating animal products. I don't think this "ethical" diet is going to work for me.
  - nawitus 13y ago
    'How much suffering am I going to reduce from a low carb vegan diet?' I don't know. 'How well does this diet work for someone like me who needs 3400 calories to build muscle?' Well. 'Unethical is a strange term of eating animal products.' I don't find it strange to call the slaughter of animals and mistreatment of animals unethical.
    - TomGullen 13y ago
      Admittedly I do think it probably is unethical to eat animals. However one thing I've always wanted to ask a vegetarian, these animals I'm eating would not exist without demand for them. So so long as I make more efforts to buy organic and well treated animals - is this still unethical? If I had a choice, be born as a chicken on an organic farm or not exist at all I'd definitely pick the chicken option.

swombat 13y ago

I've been happily low-carb for the last couple of years or so. It's worked great for me. Occasionally I relapse (hmm, chocolate), and every time I do for any substantial period, I see the effect on my weight. So long as I stick to low-carb, I don't have to worry about what I eat... just eat as much as I feel like, whenever I feel like - but low carb.

felixfurtak 13y ago

I would highly recommend watching the BBC documentary "The Men Who Made Us Fat". This reaches broadly the same conclusions. Fat is fairly innocuous, but the real danger food is Sugar, and artificial sweeteners tend to make things worse.

swombat 13y ago
Why do artificial sweeteners make things worse? Are 2 little sweetener pills in my coffee really worse than two cubes of sugar?
- TomGullen 13y ago
  I don't know too much about it but when I was looking at sweeteners to see if they would work on my keto diet I found that they are very high carb generally.
- unoti 13y ago
  It seems possible to me. I know Sucralose is actually made from sugar as a starting point, then they chemically alter it. As for can it be harmful, maybe so: "A Duke University study[35] funded by the Sugar Association found evidence that doses of Splenda of between 100 and 1000 mg/kg, containing sucralose at 1.1 to 11 mg/kg (compare to the FDA Acceptable Daily Intake of 5 mg/kg), reduced the amount of fecal microflora in rats by up to 50%, increased the pH level in the intestines, contributed to increases in body weight, and increased levels of P-glycoprotein (P-gp).[36] These effects have not been reported in humans." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose#Other_potential_effects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose#Other_potential_effec...

nawitus 13y ago

The problem with low-carb diets is that most people use it as an excuse to consume animal products. A vegan low-carb diet is fine.

jonnathanson 13y ago
Other than ethical reasons, what's the issue here? Not being snarky; just legitimately curious. I would love to see some hard science and longitudinal studies behind the ostensible benefits of a vegan diet, or the drawbacks of a diet high -- but not overly high -- in animal protein. I realize cooked animal protein and preserved/processed animal protein contains carcinogens, and that too much protein (regardless of source) can cause a variety of problems ranging from kidney impairment to gout. But plant-based sources have their costs as well (phytoestrogens, antinutrients, oxalates, etc.). I've never felt better in my life, and my various lab stats have never looked better, than when I went on a Paleo-esque high fat, low carb diet that was quite rich in animal sources, but which also contained a healthful amount of vegetables (and no fruit). I took the diet as far as ketosis, and after breaking through the ramp-up hurdles, I settled into it and got into fantastic shape. Anecdotal, yes. But I've struggled with "skinny-fatness" for much of my life, and this particular combination made a remarkable improvement on my physique without any changes in my exercise routine. Maybe my caloric consumption shifted a bit, but if anything, it probably shifted north.
- nawitus 13y ago
  Ethical reasons are enough.
TomGullen 13y ago
As long as you get enough protein and fat. It's a lot harder to get those sources of protein and fat when you exclude meat (do-able of course but you're a lot more restricted)
- nawitus 13y ago
  It's easy to get enough protein and fat on a vegan diet.

NoPiece 13y ago

So when people say, "the science is decided," remember that science almost unanimously pushed high carb low fat diets for decades before people challenged it.

gabemart 13y ago

This article misrepresents the underlying research and seems to invent some facts from whole cloth. > Sweden has become the first Western nation to develop national dietary guidelines that reject the popular low-fat diet dogma in favor of low-carb high-fat nutrition advice. Where is the evidence that Sweden has developed "national dietary guidelines"? All the sources link back to the paper [1][2] entitled "Dietary Treatment for Obesity". Clearly, dietary treatment for obesity is not the same as national dietary guidelines, and the conclusions of a paper are not the same as government policy. Further, the paper found low-carb diets more effective for weight loss only in the first six months. Long term, it found no difference in the effectiveness of low-fat vs. low carb. To quote from google translate: > In the long run there are no differences in efficacy between weight loss tips on strict and moderate carbohydrate diet, low-fat diets, högproteinkost, Mediterranean diet, diet focuses on low-glycemic load diet or a high proportion of monounsaturated fats. Further, on the "diet doctor" website, under the section "Warnings Against LCHF Dismissed" [3], it quotes the study criticizing some studies that concluded low-carb diets are unhealthy for not adequately distinguishing between different classes of low-carb diets, specifically those high in fast-food and those not. This may be a valid criticism, but is not the same as endorsing the long-term health of a low-carb diet. The "diet doctor" concludes "We simply don’t know" about the long-term effects of various macronutrient compositions on health, which is fair, but this is a long way short of the national government of Sweden endorsing high-fat low-carb diets as unequivocally healthier than high-carb low-fat diets. It may appear that I'm against low-carb diets; I'm not. I just think this is a very poor and misleading article. [1] [pdf warning] http://www.sbu.se/upload/Publikationer/Content0/1/Mat_vid_fetma_218-2013.pdf http://www.sbu.se/upload/Publikationer/Content0/1/Mat_vid_fe... [2] [google translation of conclusions] http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&prev=_dd&u=http://www.sbu.se/sv/Publicerat/Gul/Mat-vid-fetma-/ http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&prev... [3] http://www.dietdoctor.com/swedish-expert-committee-low-carb-diet-effective-weight-loss http://www.dietdoctor.com/swedish-expert-committee-low-carb-...

coldcode 13y ago
As my other comment said, it's very hard to build any diet that works for everyone. But that doesn't stop people from trying.

shaunrussell 13y ago

I've lost 48 pounds in the last 2 years (188 => 140) by simply cutting all carbs and most processed foods out of my diet. No change in habits, no additional exercise. My cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood were good to begin with, but are now EXCELLENT. My typical day I eat 3-4 eggs, half avocado, 1/2lb of red meat/chicken/fish, 2 servings of greens, 1 serving of vegetables, 2-3 servings of cheese. Never felt better. It is frustrating because people never believe me and just tell me that I have a fast metabolism.

coldcode 13y ago

Everyone's an expert on food. If I ate what all the different experts told me to eat I'd be on a different diet every day. I bet a different group of nutritional scientists would take a look at these studies and find a completely different conclusion (and likely have). There is nothing special about Sweden to make me believe they know more about food than any other country. It's great if you feel good with your diet, as it's your body. But it's a single data point. Trying to build a diet that works for everyone is like trying to find a single programming language for everyone. A diet that works for you over a few months isn't enough time to discover its true benefits, just as a terrible diet's effects aren't obvious potentially for much of a lifetime. There are plenty of people around the world's whose diet is not high fat, low carb (the Mediterranean for one) but still remain healthy so that isn't a great indicator that there is strictly one way to eat. I took enough biochemistry and nutritional chemistry classes in college to know how complicated our processing of food is, and how difficult it is to make guidelines for how people should eat.

elrzn 13y ago

Wow at the low-carb comments. Way to reject a dogma with another dogma. I have a daily intake of 400g of carbohydrates. According to you I'd be overwheight and dying of diabetes, cancer, metabolic syndrome and whatnot. Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it. No need to blame food but yourselves.

Dewie 13y ago
It's not dogma if it actually works for them (though it might be dogma if they are very insistent that it definitely will work for everyone). > Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it. No need to blame food but yourselves. That sounds like a nice middle ground, but there's no reason to take a middle ground if something more radical works better for you.
- tensor 13y ago
  I fail to see how this latest fad diet is any different from any previous fad diet. In every case, people chanted "but it works for me!!!!!" There is way more hyperbole behind these diets than science as far as I've seen.
unoti 13y ago
I think it's actually different for different people. My understanding is that someone with a high body fat percent can sustain quite a bit of an exercise regimen for a while with low carbs, consuming their fat for energy. But eventually as their body fat percent comes down, they'll need to supplement their diet with carbs to maintain their energy level for the same exercise. The P90X diet program is based on this idea, with 3 phases of the diet with very low carbs in the first phase, medium carbs in the second phase, and more carbs in the third phase. So maybe you're both right...
TomGullen 13y ago
> According to you I'd be overwheight and dying of diabetes, cancer, metabolic syndrome and whatnot. Nope, not sure where you get that idea from. > Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it. So I can eat a few chicken breasts a day, and then 1,500 kcal of mars bars? Sounds great! Alternatively if you're trying to lose weight, you can simply cut out the sugar. Exercise is of course important for a host of reasons, but for weight loss it's probably just about the hardest way to do it. I'm in despair when my severely overweight friend relays the advice from her doctor and nutritionist: "Eat less calories, and get on the treadmill". Doesn't sound fun, or easy at all. There are other ways.

Zolomon 13y ago

Being a Swede in Sweden, last I heard was that everyone was giving critique to LCHF due to high risks of cancer[1][2]. [1] http://www.kostdoktorn.se/aftonbladet-varnar-for-lchf-cancer http://www.kostdoktorn.se/aftonbladet-varnar-for-lchf-cancer [2] http://www.metro.se/nyheter/lakare-varnar-for-lchf-cancer/EVHmbs!laLUhkb5LnZKA/ http://www.metro.se/nyheter/lakare-varnar-for-lchf-cancer/EV...

pasbesoin 13y ago

The People's Pharmacy (well regarded U.S. public radio show): Show 895 The Great Cholesterol Myth http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2013/03/09/895-the-great-cholesterol-myth/ http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2013/03/09/895-the-great-chol... Further recent discussion on Wisconsin Public Radio: http://www.wpr.org/shows/peoples-pharmacy-special-pledge-drive-edition http://www.wpr.org/shows/peoples-pharmacy-special-pledge-dri...

mtdewcmu 13y ago

Isn't switching from low-fat to low-carb just trading one dogma for another?