If you decide to follow a low-carb diet, reduce your carb intake by eliminating or limiting your consumption of sugar, grains, starchy vegetables, legumes and fruits. To replace the calories supplied by carbohydrates, a low-carb diet should include a moderate amount of protein from foods such as eggs, cheese, fish, poultry or meat, and a high amount of fat, from butter, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado, bacon, nuts and nut butter, at each of your meals. Low-carb eating is often vilified and wrongly accused of having a negative impact on your heart health, but this false claims couldn't be further from the truth.
Saturated Fats and Heart Health
One of the common misconceptions with low-carb diets is that their high saturated fat content, coming from fatty meat, sausages, bacon, butter, cream, full-fat salad dressing, full-fat mayonnaise and full-fat cheese, is bad for your health. Although saturated fats have been vilified for decades, a rigorous and comprehensive meta-analysis showed that saturated fat consumption is not related to an increased risk of suffering cardiovascular or coronary heart diseases, as published in January 2010 in "The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition." Many experts and researchers, including Jeff S. Volek, associate professor at the University of Connecticut, claim that saturated fats are not harmful in the context of a low-carb diet, as explained in an August 2005 paper in "Nutrition & Metabolism."
LDL Cholesterol Levels
Many critics of the low-carb diet believe low-carb diets raise low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, but the data indicates that LDL cholesterol levels are not significantly affected by eating a low-carb diet. In a study with 120 overweight and hyperlipidemic patients, the group assigned to a low-carb diet had their LDL cholesterol levels increase by 1.6 mg/dL, while the group assigned to a low-fat diet had their LDL cholesterol levels decrease by 7.4 mg/dL. However, the researchers involved in this study estimated that this difference was not statistically significant, as published in the May 2004 issue of "Annals of Internal Medicine."
LDL Particle Size
Perhaps more important than your LDL cholesterol levels is your LDL particle size. Your LDL particles can be small and dense, which makes them more atherogenic or more prone to induce atherosclerosis and plaque in your blood vessels. Large, buoyant and fluffy LDL particles, on the other hand, are less atherogenic and present a lower risk for your health. Low-carb diets containing a high amount of total fat or saturated fat are associated with the less deleterious pattern of large, fluffy and buoyant LDL particles, according to the August 2005 paper in "Nutrition & Metabolism."
Other Cardiovascular Risk Markers
To get a good picture of your cardiovascular risk profile, it is important to not only consider your LDL cholesterol levels and size, but attention should also be paid to other important cardiovascular risk markers, such as triglycerides and HDL cholesterol levels. Eating low-carb is associated with a greater decrease in triglycerides, a type of fat in your blood associated with heart disease, and a higher increase in HDL cholesterol levels, the heart-healthy type of blood cholesterol, compared to a low-fat diet, according to a study published in the May 2004 issue of "Annals of Internal Medicine."
References
- MayoClinic.com; Low-Carb Diet; May 2010
- "The New Atkins for a New You"; Eric C. Westman, et al.; 2010
- "Nutrition & Metabolism"; The Case for Not Restricting Saturated Fat on a Low Carbohydrate Diet; Jeff S. Volek, et al.; August 2005
- "Annals of Internal Medicine"; A Low-Carbohydrate, Ketogenic Diet versus a Low-Fat Diet To Treat Obesity and Hyperlipidemia; William S. Yancy Jr., et al; May 2004
- "The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition"; Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies Evaluating the Association of Saturated Fat With Cardiovascular Disease; Patty W. Siri-Tarino, et al.; January 2010
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