Carb cutting a recipe for disaster

CUTTING carbohydrates to lose weight could increase your chance of dying by 30 per cent.

bread

CUTTING carbohydrates to lose weight could increase your chance of dying by 30 per cent.

Research reviewing the effect of low carbohydrate diets in 18 long-term studies has found they increase the chance of premature death.

University of Canberra nutritionist Professor Peter Williams will outline the risks of low-carbohydrate eating at a symposium in Sydney today.

"In the short term , a year or so, there are some advantages from a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet," he says.

But he said a recently published study of the long-term effect of these diets found you were 30 per cent more likely to die on a low-carbohydrate diet.

The reasons people were more likely to die were unclear, but he said there was evidence that wholegrains and fibre protected against bowel cancer, heart disease and probably diabetes.

"When you start restricting carbohydrates you're cutting out bread, cereals and fruit and you're losing a lot of good, protective things," he said.

The typical Australian gets around 45 per cent of their diet from carbohydrates and the National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines recommend between 45 and 65 per cent of daily energy intake should come from carbs.

Those on a low-carbohydrate diet would get less than 40 per cent of their diet from carbs.

Professor Williams says that in Japan, where they have one of the longest life expectancies in the world, 60 per cent of the diet comes from carbohydrates.

One of the co-authors of the best selling CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet Professor, Manny Noakes, will tell the symposium that while low carbohydrate diets are effective for weight loss, the high saturated fat composition of such diets remains a concern.

"The consequences of this issue is the potential impact on cardiovascular risk," she says.

Hiroshi Noto's research into the long term effect of low carbohydrate diets published in the journal Plos One found one diet quality study suggested low carbohydrate diets resulted in 0.27 shorter years of life in 10 years.

The study did not find any cardiovascular benefit from a low-carbohydrate diet "and supports their potential long-term health harm" when such nutritional quality is not considered.

" Low-carbohydrate diets tend to result in reduced intake of fibre and fruits, and increased intake of protein from animal sources, cholesterol and saturated fat, all of which are risk factors for mortality and cardiovascular disease," the study says.

It is suggests that differences in the free fatty acids, protein, fibre, minerals, vitamins and phytochemicals of low carbohydrate diets could have an effect on health.

Little is known about the consequences of low-carbohydrate diets with respect to kidney disease, osteoporosis, and mental condition and further studies are needed, the report says.