Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

[ErinB]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

Somehow I keep finding more interesting things to do.

To that I can wholeheartedly relate. I am off to take my 65-year-old body to work out at what my cardio machine calls a 40-year-old rate and I may soon have to work harder to be able to break a sweat. (Thanks to Atkins, btw.)

Reading studies makes me yawn. I believe what my body is telling me.

[mitzimarie]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

I haven't looked at it yet, but I will. I'm anxious to hear your take on it though, G. You're so smart... I will appreciate the "translation".

Pffft.... just read it. I had expected something long and detailed. It was short and vague. I'm certain that the kind of food they fed the mice was not of the quality that we eat. We already know from what G posted, that the precentages were wrong. I'm anxious to see what else she can find out about it.

And really - how can you compare the reaction of mice to the reaction of humans?

BTW - my sister performs heart/vascular ultrasounds on patients in a hospital in Texas. She went to school for that here in Baton Rouge, and did an ultrasound on my arteries when she was here. They are fine.

[Georgiana]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

Pffft.... just read it. I had expected something long and detailed. It was short and vague.

Umm... not the news, the study. It has something like 6 pages. Here's the link to it: Sign In ? PNAS

[Labarum]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

]Reading studies makes me yawn. I believe what my body is telling me.

"Mens sane in corpore sana."

"A healthy mind in a healthy body."

[Georgiana]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

Hmmm... can anyone check that link and tell me if it works? I might be accessing it though a university subscription...

[Labarum]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

Hmmm... can anyone check that link and tell me if it works? I might be accessing it though a university subscription...

Do you mean my link

BBC NEWS | Health | Low-carb diets 'damage arteries' ?

or some link to the original academic study?

My link is to the main BBC site and should be available world wide.

[Georgiana]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

Umm... not the news, the study. It has something like 6 pages. Here's the link to it: Sign In ? PNAS

My link. Quoted above.

[Labarum]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

My link. Quoted above.

And I can read it.

[Georgiana]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

And I can read it.

Great. Thanks.

[Labarum]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

Great. Thanks.

Not so great, I should have looked more closely. What I see is a apge rquiring a login or payment for a temporary subscription.

[Georgiana]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

Not so great, I should have looked more closely. What I see is a apge rquiring a login or payment for a temporary subscription.

Thought so... If anyone is interested in the paper, just send me a PM.

[liv]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

I have been getting into it but not in depth. I look forward to hearing what you think G

Here is my understanding so far

*They kept the fat equal in the low carb/high protein diet and the Western diet (around 43%)
"The used milk fat as the source of fat.
*They lowered the carbs for the low carb one to around 10-15% but do not tell us what the source of the carbs were. And they increased the protein (so would that still be milk protein?) . The cholesterol level was the same for these two diets
*They kept calorie level equal (The third group of mice ate standard chow 65 carb, 15 fat, 20 protein)
* It sounds like all mice put on weight but the low carb mice put on 28% less
*They found that at both 6 and 12 weeks the both the LCHP mice and the WD mice developed atherosclerosis and that "data demonstrate the LCHP-fed mice developed more extensive atherosclerosis than WD-fed mice, despite similar dietary fat and cholesterol content, and reduced weight gain"

We examined aortae for the development of atherosclerosis after 6 and 12 weeks on the diets... At 6 weeks, mice on the LCHP had significantly more atheroma than mice on the WD (5.4% vs. 2.2% respectively). This difference was maintained after 12 weeks on the diets (15.3% vs. 8.8% respectively). As expected, chow-fed mice had minimal,although quantifiable, amounts of plaque at both 6 (0.5%) and 12 (1.3%) weeks, which was significantly less than that seen in LCHP- and WD-fed mice

So while the blood profile of the mice were not changed too much this areas of plaque that they measured were and they conclude that "these data at least raise concern that low carbohydrate high-protein diets could have adverse vascular effects not adequately reflected in serum risk markers."


I think one of the questionable parts of this study (in addition to the fact that it is not relevant to an Atkins person as we do not rise our protein) is the type of mice they used. They used mice called ApoE. It is a genetically modified mice.

According to this Taconic | Products and Services | Animal Models | Taconic Transgenic Exchange | APOE

• Homozygous ApoE mice are devoid of apoE protein
• Mice develop normally, but exhibit five times normal serum plasma cholesterol and spontaneous atherosclerotic lesions.

So this explains why even on a very low fat diet these mice developed this effect. The mice have been modified so that they will react to fat fast and develop issues so scientists can get their results quicker. I am not sure what this effect would be for a normal mice.

[mizski]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

this study! I'm sure most will prefer the more scientific reviews pending.

I am waiting for a true scientific study to be done on actual human followers of Atkins...both those who are in the weight loss phase and those who have been in Maintenance for a while. I am sooooo tired of so called scientific studies that are skewed to garner results that show Atkins in a poor light.

[sallyseachange]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

this study! I'm sure most will prefer the more scientific reviews pending.

I am waiting for a true scientific study to be done on actual human followers of Atkins...both those who are in the weight loss phase and those who have been in Maintenance for a while. I am sooooo tired of so called scientific studies that are skewed to garner results that show Atkins in a poor light.

Hear hear!!

[Georgiana]

Re: Low Carb Diets damage arteries?

As Liv said, this stuff has absolutely nothing to do with Atkins. But I kept an eye on Google News tonight and, of course, many articles said stuff like, "Low-carbohydrate high-protein diets, such as Atkins, can [insert something that kills you]." This reminds me of the first (and only) time I tried to explain my grandma what research I'll be doing for my PhD. I told her that I'm looking at clusters of galaxies (big groups of galaxies), yadda yadda.... and her question was, "Will you find aliens? " Ugh.

So... yes. The paper says one thing, news agencies mutilate the results, throw out some parts they find unimportant and voila, we've got another sensational news saying that Atkins will kill us.

That's why I think it's important to always read the study, not (only) what appears in the news. And we should not dismiss the results just because they are anti-LC or because they come from an experiment done on mice (no where do the authors say that "low-carbohydrate high-protein diets cause atherosclerosis in humans"). After all, mice are considered a good model for such experiments, and researchers normally warn against directly extrapolating the results to humans. Also, since I'm at it (has nothing to do with this study though), I don't think research funded by [whoever] should be dismissed simply because it's funded by [whoever]. I've seen it often at ADBB and around other bulletin boards --- "the results are crap because the research was funded by X". Well, that's not a good reason. Unless one reads the study and finds things one does not agree with in the experimental method used, in the analysis, in the interpretation of the results, etc. then one cannot claim a study is rubbish just because the money came from [whoever]. After all, the Duke University study of Westman et al. 2002 was funded by the Atkins Center. And so was the UConn study of Volek et al. 2002 on body composition. So we would be hypocrites dismissing studies that do not favor low-carb diets based exclusively on the source of money.

Ramble over.

--------

Liv, you were wondering about the diets of these poor mice. I guess there are Atkineers who have rodents as pets, so they might also be interested in the rodent chow diet used in this study.

This is how the stuff looks like, for all diets:


Cookies!!! Yum!

Harlan Teklad #2018 (18% Protein Rodent Diet)

Ingredients — Ground wheat, ground corn, wheat middlings, dehulled soybean meal, corn gluten meal, soybean oil, calcium carbonate, brewers dried yeast, dicalcium phosphate, iodized salt, L-lysine, DL-methionine, choline chloride, niacin, vitamin A acetate, biotin, pyridoxine hydrochloride, thiamine mononitrate, vitamin D3 supplement, folic acid, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity), vitamin E supplement, vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin, calcium pantothenate, ferrous sulfate, magnesium oxide, manganous oxide, zinc oxide, copper sulfate, calcium iodate, cobalt carbonate, chromium potassium sulfate, kaolin.

The ingredients in the "Western" diet are not listed, but this is the formula used:

Harlan Teklad #88137 (42% Fat "Western" Diet)

Casein (195 g/kg), DL-methionine (3 g/kg), sucrose (341 g/kg), corn starch (150 g/kg), anhydrous milkfat (210 g/kg), cholesterol (1.5 g/kg), cellulose (50 g/kg), mineral mix (35 g/kg), calcium carbonate (4 g/kg), vitamin mix (10 g/kg), ethoxyquin (0.04 g/kg).

The low-carbohydrate high-protein diet used in the study is secret... but something tells me they didn't eat their veggies. See what happened to these silly mice if they didn't read the book?

So this explains why even on a very low fat diet these mice developed this effect. The mice have been modified so that they will react to fat fast and develop issues so scientists can get their results quicker. I am not sure what this effect would be for a normal mice.

I don't expect that to make a (big) difference, because the "normal" mice showed a very similar decrease in their endothelial progenitor cells (these are cells that are believed to help in vascular repair) and in their neovascularization capacity (healing after ischemic injury).

Back to the paper. What surprises me is the triglycerides. The numbers agree within their error ranges, but I would have expected triglycerides to drop (as we know they do on Atkins) on the low-carbohydrate high-protein (LCHP) diet. These were the numbers after 6 weeks on the diet:
-- normal rodent diet: 108 +/- 6.9 mg/dL
-- "Western" diet: 95 +/- 27.8 mg/dL
-- LCHP diet: 155 +/- 60.7 mg/dL

Instead of dropping, the triglycerides seem to have increased (not significantly, but still) on the LCHP. I don't know if this has something to do with the ingredients in the diet, with the high protein intake or if mice (apoE -/- or +/+) simply react differently to a low-carbohydrate diet.

In any case, Atkineers don't have any good reason to worry that a similar effect could take place on a high-fat, moderate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet. The results of different studies are contradictory (some say low-fat high-carb is better, some say low-carb high-fat is better) and there is no evidence that proves the Atkins Diet is damaging on one's cardiovascular health. I'll post a new reply a bit later, with results from some of these studies, both pro and con LC.