Is low carb dangerous? possibly.
Colorscheme
Posts: 1,179 Member
I don't eat low carb, but I was wondering if low carb diets long term are unhealthy. I came across an NIH article that detailed how many carbs, proteins and fats each and every organ of your body requires. It said that the brain alone requires 120-130 grams of carbs a day to remain healthy. To me, that implies eating a low carb diet may be starving the organs when done long enough.
Thoughts?
This is the article for anyone interested: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22436/
[I am not debating the efficiency of low carb vs CICO for weight loss, I am talking about it's long term effects on organs]
Thoughts?
This is the article for anyone interested: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22436/
[I am not debating the efficiency of low carb vs CICO for weight loss, I am talking about it's long term effects on organs]
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It is glucose that the body requires and your body can make up any lack of glucose without problem, otherwise people people would have to eat very small meals every hour or so, including throughout the night in order to keep the glucose supply steady.
It is thought low carb is safe. I haven't seen any studies longer than a year or two. There aren't many studies on any diets and their long term safety though.0 -
Yes, I was wondering if maybe there were long term studies done on low carb but I guess not, it might be too big of a liability.
Curious, how do you get glucose if you're following a low carb diet? Don't you eventually run out of glucose storage? Glucose is broken down into sugar and as far as I know, low carb bans most forms of sugar, even fruit and whatnot except for berries. Atkins specifically comes to mind.0 -
Low carb isn't healthy for those around me! I've noticed I'm moody as hell and absent minded when I go low carb. I quit doing it after I figured that out.
I have no idea if there's any science to back that up but it made a difference for me.0 -
TheBeachgod wrote: »Low carb isn't healthy for those around me! I've noticed I'm moody as hell and absent minded when I go low carb. I quit doing it after I figured that out.
I have no idea if there's any science to back that up but it made a difference for me.
Interesting. Wonder if it's the result of starving your brain of carbohydrates. I've heard of low carb people complaining of brain fog.0 -
The South African meerkat carries hardly any fat reserves, so it must eat constantly. They've developed an interesting cooperative social structure to survive.
http://www.livescience.com/27406-meerkats.html
http://www.animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/meerkat/
Low carb can be dangerous for T1 diabetics and hypoglycemics especially, as sometimes they need a fast acting carb to get out of a low.0 -
The South African meerkat carries hardly any fat reserves, so it must eat constantly. They've developed an interesting cooperative social structure to survive.
http://www.livescience.com/27406-meerkats.html
http://www.animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/meerkat/
Low carb can be dangerous for T1 diabetics and hypoglycemics especially, as sometimes they need a fast acting carb to get out of a low.
Wouldn't a diabetic know that though? My friend has type 1 diabetes and she's vigilant about what her body needs and how much, and always tests her blood sugar levels and takes insulin.
I've heard of more people ignoring their diabetes and suffering from lost limbs and leg issue as well as blindness and eventual death as a result
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Your body can convert protein to glucose as well.0
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Just control the carb intake. How can you live without lovely lovely carbs.0
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You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about low carb diets.0
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Dangerous? Not from my experience. I spent over a year in ketosis (not ketoacidosis) with mostly positive effects (and an admitted non-stop craving for pizza.) My body readily converted fat to ketones. I lost over 60 lbs in six months.0
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Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about low carb diets.
Cool, thanks for assuming! Too bad you're wrong.0 -
EddieHaskell97 wrote: »Dangerous? Not from my experience. I spent over a year in ketosis (not ketoacidosis) with mostly positive effects (and an admitted non-stop craving for pizza.) My body readily converted fat to ketones. I lost over 60 lbs in six months.
Thanks for sharing your experience. But one year isn't long enough to determine the effects of low carb on organs. Someone upthread said there have been no long term studies but I guess that's for liability reasons.
Honestly, I didn't even consider low carb's effects on organs until I read the NIH article this morning, since I follow a moderate carb way of eating as I do a lot of running.0 -
The brain fog that is referred to is usually when your body is transitioning from burning carbs for easy energy to your body becoming fat adapted and burning fat. Many of us simply function better on lower carbs. I am actually clearer headed when I am eating how my body prefers, which is around 50-100 carbs a day, technically not super low carb, but lower than most.0
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The brain fog that is referred to is usually when your body is transitioning from burning carbs for easy energy to your body becoming fat adapted and burning fat. Many of us simply function better on lower carbs. I am actually clearer headed when I am eating how my body prefers, which is around 50-100 carbs a day, technically not super low carb, but lower than most.
I'm not saying low carb doesn't help one function better. I was interested in the long term implications, but apparently no studies have been done, boo.
That said, I'm glad it's helped you!0 -
realityfades wrote: »The South African meerkat carries hardly any fat reserves, so it must eat constantly. They've developed an interesting cooperative social structure to survive.
http://www.livescience.com/27406-meerkats.html
http://www.animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/meerkat/
Low carb can be dangerous for T1 diabetics and hypoglycemics especially, as sometimes they need a fast acting carb to get out of a low.
Wouldn't a diabetic know that though? My friend has type 1 diabetes and she's vigilant about what her body needs and how much, and always tests her blood sugar levels and takes insulin.
I've heard of more people ignoring their diabetes and suffering from lost limbs and leg issue as well as blindness and eventual death as a result
Yes, diabetics should all attend training to understand their disease, and vigilant diabetics will be on the lookout for highs and lows.
Yet, low carb diets are de rigeur in the US right now it seems, to help insulin resistant and T2 diabetics lose weight and lower their blood sugar.
I'll keep repeating until people get it, diabetes is a disease best treated as a balancing act, not going too high or too low with their blood sugars.
When a person's blood sugar drops too low, their cognitive function is impaired and they may not be aware enough to say, eat a cookie right away. Those around them may need to act quickly to prevent them from slipping in to a diabetic coma. The first aid treatment for someone who appears to be experiencing a diabetic high or low (the two may present similarly) is to give them a fast acting carb right away. This is because it will "cure" the low nearly instantly, and won't do immediate damage if the patient's blood sugar is too high.0 -
realityfades wrote: »
If you mean few enough carbs to induce Ketosis, you could look up "Ketone Bodies" on wikipedia or elsewhere for some good intel.
Brain function tends to suffer a bit initially (brain-fog, cranky, etc) but once you're body stops waiting for more carbs and makes the switch, you're good to go.
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realityfades wrote: »EddieHaskell97 wrote: »Dangerous? Not from my experience. I spent over a year in ketosis (not ketoacidosis) with mostly positive effects (and an admitted non-stop craving for pizza.) My body readily converted fat to ketones. I lost over 60 lbs in six months.
Thanks for sharing your experience. But one year isn't long enough to determine the effects of low carb on organs. Someone upthread said there have been no long term studies but I guess that's for liability reasons.
Honestly, I didn't even consider low carb's effects on organs until I read the NIH article this morning, since I follow a moderate carb way of eating as I do a lot of running.
I really doubt it's for liability reasons. All sorts of studies can be very high risk and are still done. Most likely they aren't done because of the same reason there are no long term studies on any diet. Controlled diet experiments are very expensive. Long term cohort studies have far more error (recall bias and variability due to people going off diet for a while), but are more common because they are easier to conduct. There are several longer studies of populations/communities that have tended to eat lower carb, but I do not think there have been any newer studies just because it hasn't been a popular diet until recently.0 -
I have a LOT of weight to lose. I have tried EVERY SINGLE DIET out there. I went back to low carb at the beginning of the year. I've lost 11.5 pounds so far. I know that will even out and lessen as time goes on. I will say that with this way of eating, I have never felt better. The first few days are the hardest as you detox from sugar/junk. Day four for me, honestly, I didn't think I was gonna make it. LOL I mean... I was beyond *kitten* to my husband, and wanted to cry. I felt nauseous. Woke up day five and felt like a new person. If you can stick it out the first few days knowing that it gets better, it's worth it. I feel amazing. No cravings...never starving. I usually have to remember to eat something...which at 150 lbs to lose you know is not something I'm used to having to remember Definitely no brain fog. I feel more alert, focused, etc. Had blood work done a few days back and it's all great. Cholesterol, triglycerides, everything. My biggest struggle is redoing everything about how I cook for my family. I have to relearn how to cook. My husband is diabetic, and it's helped his blood sugar numbers as well. He does eat a few more carbs just so his blood doesn't go to low. 0
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Your body can use fat instead of carbs. Most people who go on a low carb diet and don't thrive is because they're not getting enough fat. There are a ton of studies available if you Google.
I have some friends who are low carb and her husband is a molecular biologist studying epigenetics and the science behind low carbing and how their bodies function better is why they've chosen to eat this way. They've been low carb for probably five years and they're both in amazing health.
For me, it fixes so many of my problems. I have Hashimotos, PCOS, ADHD, hidradenitis supprativa, depression, fibro... the list goes on. When I'm eating low carb, my medication works better, I sleep better, I'm not in pain and all my other issues just kind of go away. It works for me.
Also, I have a family history of diabetes and when your thyroid is giving you issues, it can affect your A1C as well. Low carb lowered my A1C and put me back in a normal range. My endocrinologist recs low carb high fat diets to most of his patients with autoimmune disorders.
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I have a LOT of weight to lose. I have tried EVERY SINGLE DIET out there. I went back to low carb at the beginning of the year. I've lost 11.5 pounds so far. I know that will even out and lessen as time goes on. I will say that with this way of eating, I have never felt better. The first few days are the hardest as you detox from sugar/junk. Day four for me, honestly, I didn't think I was gonna make it. LOL I mean... I was beyond *kitten* to my husband, and wanted to cry. I felt nauseous. Woke up day five and felt like a new person. If you can stick it out the first few days knowing that it gets better, it's worth it. I feel amazing. No cravings...never starving. I usually have to remember to eat something...which at 150 lbs to lose you know is not something I'm used to having to remember Definitely no brain fog. I feel more alert, focused, etc. Had blood work done a few days back and it's all great. Cholesterol, triglycerides, everything. My biggest struggle is redoing everything about how I cook for my family. I have to relearn how to cook. My husband is diabetic, and it's helped his blood sugar numbers as well. He does eat a few more carbs just so his blood doesn't go to low.
That's great! I'm not saying a low carb diet is inefficient for weight loss. I'm just wondering if low carb diets over years and years and years is ok for the brain and other body processes in the absence of glycogen.0 -
AmazonGoddessofDoom wrote: »Your body can use fat instead of carbs. Most people who go on a low carb diet and don't thrive is because they're not getting enough fat. There are a ton of studies available if you Google.
I have some friends who are low carb and her husband is a molecular biologist studying epigenetics and the science behind low carbing and how their bodies function better is why they've chosen to eat this way. They've been low carb for probably five years and they're both in amazing health.
For me, it fixes so many of my problems. I have Hashimotos, PCOS, ADHD, hidradenitis supprativa, depression, fibro... the list goes on. When I'm eating low carb, my medication works better, I sleep better, I'm not in pain and all my other issues just kind of go away. It works for me.
Also, I have a family history of diabetes and when your thyroid is giving you issues, it can affect your A1C as well. Low carb lowered my A1C and put me back in a normal range. My endocrinologist recs low carb high fat diets to most of his patients with autoimmune disorders.
Yes, I'm not saying it isn't beneficial. But I would think after years of low carb eating, your glycogen storage would be depleted. Someone above said protein can get converted into glucose, so there's that.
And congrats on feeling better!0 -
realityfades wrote: »It said that the brain alone requires 120-130 grams of carbs a day to remain healthy. To me, that implies eating a low carb diet may be starving the organs when done long enough.
Your body is able to make what it needs for that purpose if you don't provide it through diet. (My understanding is that it still needs a very small amount of carbs as it can't do gluconeogenesis [edit: ugh, always mess up the name of this process] if completely glycogen depleted, but even keto isn't no carb.)
There are long-term studies on diets (as in various ways of eating) due to things like the nurses and health professional studies, which is where we are able to see lots of correlations (and follow up on them -- they mostly seem consistent with common sense, IMO). But I doubt there's a long enough and significant enough group for low carb to be looked at, let alone something like keto. And there would be lots of things that would have to be controlled for, like if it was a disproportionately overweight population (since it's often chosen for weight loss) or a population more inclined toward certain diseases (since it gets recommended to them) or, of course, a population more likely to be thinking a lot about how they eat. It's like how studies of vegans get distorted by the fact that they are likely more health conscious and often more active.
The best place to go for a study would be traditional diets/populations, but my understanding is that there aren't any that are keto. There are some that are low carb, though -- it appears that humans can have a healthy diet with a huge range of macro mixes, so I tend to think focusing on macros as the key to health is really beside the point. As a way to help yourself make better choices it can be helpful, though.0 -
I was pretty successful on a low carb plan too, and I readily admit that I consider myself to be a "meat-a-holic", but there came a point when I craved some fruit or veg, so ultimately it was unsustainable for me. I developed kidneys stones a couple of years later, and my urologist said that low carb diets contribute to that condition - I think he was just trying to scare me, and it didnt work. Kidney stones are most often excess calcium deposits. I still have a couple of stones that are just sitting back, chillin', waiting to speak to me.0
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I apologize if this was discussed in the article (I quickly skimmed it):
- The liver and muscles store a ton of glucose as glycogen (which are very long chains of glucose molecules). When blood glucose levels are low, the pancreas releases glucagon, which is a hormone that tells the liver to break down some of its glycogen into glucose.
- Protein can be "converted" into carbohydrates if the body has a greater need for carbs. This is why many people on a keto diet cannot eat super high amounts of protein, because that will trigger the body to stop ketosis (this is also why many diabetics on insulin need to take some insulin for low-carb high-protein foods, like chicken breasts)
- This is pretty interesting and I only found out about it a few weeks ago, but some cells don't require insulin for glucose to be transported. GLUT3, a glucose transporter in the brain, runs independent of insulin. Technically, a person can be on a low-carb diet (or be void of insulin in type 1 diabetes) and still have glucose fueling the brain. Protein can be converted into carbs (which could possibly be stored as glycogen in excess). Muscles are composed of a lot of protein, so in instances of long-term starvation the body can start to break down muscle in order to obtain glucose. The big issue with the brain and glucose metabolism is in instances of severe hypoglycemia where glycogen stores are already severely depleted. I read a study that showed the continuous-glucose-monitor data of a type 1 diabetic who died from hypoglycemia (death in bed syndrome), and the body tried to bring up his BG multiple times (glucagon is released, glycogen breaks down into glucose, BG rises... BG concentration drops again, the cycle repeats... The Somogyi effect is a great example of what happens during this process). At some point, the man's glycogen stores were completely depleted, there was still an insulin excess, and the man passed away as a result of his BG being SUPER low (I think close to zero, but I'm having issues finding the study again and am not 100% sure)
Sorry if I started to ramble (clearly, I need to do A LOT more research). I think keto is useful in some situations (especially when cutting carbs might help a person create the calorie deficit necessary for weight loss), but there are some instances where a person might find keto inappropriate. The body has numerous mechanisms in place to make sure vital organs receive adequate glucose, but some diseases might cause these mechanisms to fail.
Personally, I wouldn't follow a keto diet, because I'm very prone to going into diabetic ketoacidosis. Ketoacidosis is very different from ketosis (ketoacidosis occurs from uncontrolled ketosis as a result of insulin deficiency, hyperglycemia, and dehydration), but I would have issues determining if I am urinating moderate ketones from a keto diet (and don't need to do any interventions), or if I'm urinating moderate ketones because of an insulin deficiency because of my insulin pump failing to administer insulin (which would require me to resolve the deficiency ASAP before ketoacidosis occurs).0 -
realityfades wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about low carb diets.
Cool, thanks for assuming! Too bad you're wrong.
Your posting history suggests otherwise.0 -
During periods of low carbohydrate intake, the body begins favoring different metabolic pathways.
In such a state, the brain's demand for glucose becomes partially met by using ketones, and to a lesser extent, possibly lactic acid. In such a state, the needs go from the usual ~120g/day to around ~25g/day.
This last ~25g remains so vital, however, that your body is capable of gluconeogenesis to make glucose out of various substances: lactate, glycerol (possibly stripped from a triglyceride / fat), alanine (amino acid), and glutamine (amino acid), and about 10% other substances, many of them other amino acids.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis0 -
During periods of low carbohydrate intake, the body begins favoring different metabolic pathways.
In such a state, the brain's demand for glucose becomes partially met by using ketones, and to a lesser extent, possibly lactic acid. In such a state, the needs go from the usual ~120g/day to around ~25g/day.
This last ~25g remains so vital, however, that your body is capable of gluconeogenesis to make glucose out of various substances: lactate, glycerol (possibly stripped from a triglyceride / fat), alanine (amino acid), and glutamine (amino acid), and about 10% other substances, many of them other amino acids.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis
Thanks for the bit of info. I guess that's why Atkins has such a short induction phase. The amount of carbs allowed on that would certainly be detrimental if done for very long periods of time.0 -
realityfades wrote: »During periods of low carbohydrate intake, the body begins favoring different metabolic pathways.
In such a state, the brain's demand for glucose becomes partially met by using ketones, and to a lesser extent, possibly lactic acid. In such a state, the needs go from the usual ~120g/day to around ~25g/day.
This last ~25g remains so vital, however, that your body is capable of gluconeogenesis to make glucose out of various substances: lactate, glycerol (possibly stripped from a triglyceride / fat), alanine (amino acid), and glutamine (amino acid), and about 10% other substances, many of them other amino acids.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis
Thanks for the bit of info. I guess that's why Atkins has such a short induction phase. The amount of carbs allowed on that would certainly be detrimental if done for very long periods of time.
People have done ketosis for years at a time. As far as I know, there have not been any reported "detrimental" affects that you keep claiming. While I think keto is encouraged too much right now as the "cure-all", it is not some horrible, evil diet that will kill everyone like you seem to be implying.0 -
realityfades wrote: »During periods of low carbohydrate intake, the body begins favoring different metabolic pathways.
In such a state, the brain's demand for glucose becomes partially met by using ketones, and to a lesser extent, possibly lactic acid. In such a state, the needs go from the usual ~120g/day to around ~25g/day.
This last ~25g remains so vital, however, that your body is capable of gluconeogenesis to make glucose out of various substances: lactate, glycerol (possibly stripped from a triglyceride / fat), alanine (amino acid), and glutamine (amino acid), and about 10% other substances, many of them other amino acids.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis
Thanks for the bit of info. I guess that's why Atkins has such a short induction phase. The amount of carbs allowed on that would certainly be detrimental if done for very long periods of time.
Atkins isn't a keto diet. But lots of keto dieters eat 25 or less daily. Long term.0
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