New study: does Low Carb cause Heart Disease? episode artwork

EPISODE · Sep 14, 2026 · 10 MIN

New study: does Low Carb cause Heart Disease?

from Nutrition Made Simple! · host Nutrition Made Simple!

A new study looks at low carb diets and heart disease risk and reveals more health-promoting low carb patterns.low carb diets are popular, but there’s a concern about heart disease. people on low-carb often see their weight go down but their cholesterol go upnew study split people according to carbohydrate intake and measured heart disease riskthe group eating the least carbohydrate had the highest riskPeople who don’t like low-carb gloated, and people who love low-carb tried to dismiss the study. who's right?If less carbohydrate = higher risk, is it due to the lower carbohydrate or what I ate instead? when carbohydrates were replaced mainly with animal foods, meat dairy eggs, risk went up 50% but if replaced with plant foods, there was no change. so it may be less about the carbs and more about the replacementbut most people focus on whether cutting carbs is good or bad. "high carb" and "low-carb" says very little. Low carb can be designed to be healthy or unhealthy. Same for high carb. And same for low fat. the key is the type of carbs and types of fat.The carb vs fat wars are a distraction. even a study screaming that its not about the carbs per se only led to people arguing more… about carbsso many people condemn low-carb diets or low fat diets, adding to the confusion. a new report on people on low carb diets with high cholesterol was titled 'keto is not for everyone'. But the problem is not keto or low carb, it’s how it is designedpeople are being told carbs are bad so they run to low carb diets then they’re told low carb diets are bad and they're confused. if someone does better on lower carbohydrate, or fat, I don’t see a problem. keys for health: fruits and vegetables, unprocessed plant foods, easy on the ultraprocessed and the saturated fat and salt. If they want to do that with a bit more carb or less carb, high fat or intermediate fat, fine. The drop in carbohydrates in the study here was modest. Between 58 and 40% of calories from carbs. What happens in more extreme ranges? We don't knowAlso, maybe the people eating more plants and less animal foods also had other healthy behaviors that couldn’t be completely adjusted for. do other studies generally agree? people on low carb diets high in animal protein and fat have higher risk of heart disease and overall death than if the low carb diet is plant-rich and people who start a low carb diet after a heart attack tend to die more, but only if it’s high in animal protein and fat, not if it’s low carb but plant-rich eating a high amount of animal foods rich in saturated fat lowers LDL receptor, risk of heart disease goes upIn controlled trials, people who replaced saturated fat with unsaturated fat (predominant in plant foods) had less heart attacks and were less likely to die of heart disease. a low carb diet that is plant-rich can improve blood markers like cholesterol, etcsome people may want to play it safe but are still interested in low carb. as the new study shows you can do low carb without your risk going up by replacing the carbs with more unsaturated fats, more plant foods. key is to not go overboard on saturated fatThe turkana get 75% of their calories from animal products and yet have an average LDL cholesterol of 60, values we normally only see in vegans or people on cholesterol-lowering meds. The average LDL-c in the US is 130so for most of us going easy on the saturated fat rich foods is the safest bet, whether that’s low carb, high carb or anything in betweenAnother video on keto vs vegan diets, and one on different fats and their effect on healthConnect with me:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrGilCarvalho/Twitter: https://twitter.com/NutritionMadeS3Animations: Even Topland @toplandmediaReferences:new study: www.ahajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1161/ATVBAHA.120.314838'keto not for everyone' report: www.lipidjourna Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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New study: does Low Carb cause Heart Disease?

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