Low Carb Diet For Metabolic Syndrome

1 min

An estimated one-third of American adults have metabolic syndrome. Its symptoms include high blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and high triglyceride levels or abnormally low HDL (“good”) cholesterol. It has been assumed that weight loss is responsible for improvements in metabolic syndrome seen with low-carb diets, and Ohio State researchers wanted to know how a low-carbohydrate diet that didn’t lead to weight loss would affect metabolic syndrome. The researchers recruited 16 men and women diagnosed with the condition and put them on a four-week low carb diet. All the meals were prepared to provide calories equal to each person’s energy expenditure and designed to keep each person’s weight stable. After the four-week study period, more than half of the participants no longer met the criteria for metabolic syndrome. “There’s no doubt that people with metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes do better on low-carb diets, but they typically lose weight, and one of the prevailing thoughts is that the weight loss is driving the improvements. That was clearly not the case here,” said study senior author Jeff Volek. The research was supported by the National Dairy Council and the Dutch Dairy Association.

Source:
Parker N. Hyde and Jeff Volek et al, “Dietary carbohydrate restriction improves metabolic syndrome independent of weight loss.” JCI Insight, June 20, 2019; 4 (12) DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.128308

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