Low-carb diets worry some experts

Jan. 24, 2004 12:00 AM

Even as low-carb diets expand, some medical experts question the diets' long-term safety and viability. It's possible that ingesting high amounts of protein over a long period can cause kidney damage or bone loss, they say.

The best ways to handle carbs, says Johanna Burani, co-author of Good Carbs Bad Carbs, is to watch your carbs but don't eliminate them. Instead, she says, choose carbohydrates that are better for the body, or carbs that cause a slow rise in blood-sugar levels.

The chief complaint is this: When a "bad carb," a food high in sugar or refined white flour, is eaten, blood sugar rises quickly, causing the body to increase production of insulin. Insulin tells the body to store extra sugar as fuel, which can turn into fat. Insulin also impairs the body's ability to burn fat for fuel, notes Dr. Stuart Trager, a Philadelphia surgeon and chairman of the Atkins Physicians Council.

Then, blood sugar crashes and the body craves more, leaving a person hungry and likely seeking more carbohydrates. And the cycle repeats.

Instead, experts advise consuming "good carbs," which cause more gradual blood-sugar fluctuations. "Good carbs" include brown rice, whole grains and apples.

However, Dr. David L. Katz, professor at the Yale School of Medicine and author of The Way To Eat, cautions against diets that ban any food group. He points to the low-fat diet craze of the '90s, when fat-free sweets loaded with sugar erupted in production and popularity. People ate huge amounts of these highly sweetened foods, and many gained weight. Low-carb food creations, he says, are taking us down the same road.

- Jaimee Rose
and Karen Fernau

I would like to know on what research this statement by Dr. Katz is based. I understand how low-fat foods caused many to gain weight, but I haven't seen any proof that low-carb is doing the same thing.

I can see something similar happening with all the frankenfoods there are now. Like bars that claim to have 0 net carbs but loaded with SA. Foods that are highly processed and not very filling or healthy but suitable as an occasional treat.

I can totally see people eating 20 0 carb bars (which still have a ton of calories, fat etc.) and then saying why didnt I lose weight when I was ingesting 7000 calories worth of processed junk in my system but stayed under the 20g of carbs limit and I was told not to pay attention to calories.

Regular junk food wasnt all that good for me and I dont think low carb junk food is great for me either. While it is a better option sometimes than the high carb stuff they are both fake processed foods in the end.

I honestly dont think that sitting around with a bag of LC doritos will be much better for me than sitting around with a bag of regular doritos.

I think all these frankenfoods are sending out the wrong message to people. Options are great but natural whole foods are much healthier and far more filling.

Even with the so called "franken foods" I don't think it will be so likely to happen. I've tried a few and first off, most of them tasted really odd. They use soy in them which seems to always carry an off flavor. Secondly, I get so darned full so fast on low carb foods, I just can't eat so much.

Personally if they're using flours that are lower in carbs, I don't see that it is such a sin against nature. Wheat gluten flour has been around how long? What's frankensteinish about that? What's frankenstein about using nut flours. And personally, I'm all for them doing a little food science and isolating the protein parts of flours. I'd love to be able to eat crackers and tasty breads again (and I do!).

I'm off to cook up myself a batch of Frankencrackers. Damned tasty little crunchy guys if I say so myself.

I'm with you Nancy. I am grateful for the low carb products, when used responsibly they make the diet much more enjoyable. I really don't like the term "frankenfoods", it implies that you've creates some "monster food" that is destructive, it has a will of its own. It removes personal responsibility from the equation. If you have a problem moderating your behavior around some food, I don't see how thats the foods fault .

Yea, when I first taste something really yummy I have the urge to eat a lot of it. But you know what? I don't call food that tastes good "frankenfood" and blame it for making me want to eat it all. I just take responsibility for my actions and eat reasonable portions. After I get accustomed to the food, that feeling like you have to binge on it goes away.

Anyway I just don't like the term frankenfood... putting the blame on food and not ourselves seems a little foolish to me, and ultimately undermines your transition into healthy eating habits. The food didn't make you eat it.

Quite true, but the population of this forum isn't a good cross section of low carbers in general. We are the affluent and the conscientious. What about when the fad-chasers hop on board? And those who simply aren't literate and/or media/product savvy and/or intelligent enough to be able to put together a good plan?

My cousin is an example. Her kids are overweight already. Her son asked for some candy. Mom said no. He asked, "so can I have Cheez-its instead? They're healthy, right?" She said yes, they were. It was ten pm and half an hour later, he was wired for sound. Now she's not stupid, but this is the average person's understanding of nutrition.

I think Katz could be right. It's already happening. People think they're low carbing by eating a little less sugar and flour, and buying "the LC diet food." It would be really nice if they were used responsibly, but I seriously doubt the food companie$ will be satisfied with that. They want sales, and why should they limit themselves to those of us who really know what we're doing? I'd have to guess that for every one of us who knows to emphasize the unprocessed food, there are five who desperately want to believe that they can have their cake and eat it, too; and would rather have boxed products than learn to cook, let alone bother eating vegetables.

Arguably, low fat was the same way: there were those who were conscientious about their food choices and ate loads of vegetables and unprocessed food. But what really took over the low fat movement? Snackwells and their equivalents. Junk food. I wish I believed otherwise, but I honestly think profit will be more important than "responsible use" and people will be duped into loading up on them.

I think the only difference is that it was way easier to make low fat food than it is to make low carb food, and the former, being loaded with sugar, was downright addictive, as many of us found the hard way.

I couldn't agree with you more. I learned about the "white posion" almost twenty years ago and lost weight and gained health. But like most I was influenced by life around me and started eating the refined foods and reached an all time high of 235 and developed diabetes to boot.

The most important thing I got from Atkins is healthy, responsible eating that includes a change in life style and eating habits. REplacing one bad habit with another isn't the way to go.

Most days I have been able to make it with out looking for a subsitute. Today was the hardest due to boredom.

Watched a very interesting show about low carb life style on the Food network tonight, and everyone they talked to talked about a change in life style not just food choices.

Well said Christine.

The problem with frankenfood is not necessarily determined by their percentage of "franken" to "food". I mean, that obviously something made with real ingredients like gluten floor and nut flour is better than something loaded with ingredients only found in a laboratory.

However, one must remember a fact that is frequently overlooked. If you do Atkins properly, without any of the low-carb substitutes, your diet will be filled with wholesome, nutrient-dense food: Meat, fat, vegetable, cheese and nuts. I personally believe that the good health that is reported to be increased by following Atkins is that, for the first time ever for many people, you are finally feeding your body the nutrients it needs.

Frankenfood are most often than not, almost void, of nutrients. Each time you eat a frankenfood you are displacing a potentially nutrient-dense food from your diet.

On a small scale, I suppose it doesn't matter so much. But if this trend continues you will be soon be able to totally convert your former nutritionally deficient diet of low-fat filler food to a nutritionally-deficient low-carb filler food. A low-carb bar for breakfast, washed down with a diet soda. Low-carb sanwich with low-carb doritos and washed down with diet soda for lunch. Low-carb macaroni 'n cheese from a box for supper. Maybe later you'll have low-carb ice cream for dessert. See where I am getting at ? How many people do you reckon will end up eating like that.

The problem, in my opinion, is the message that is going out focuses too much on what NOT to eat and not enough on what TO eat. Yes refined carbs are bad. However whole food are good and that message seems weak and overshadowed by the carb is bad message.

Here is a radical thought. Looking at other cultures who are both healthier and slimmer (think France) but still consume a fair amount of carbs ... maybe it's not so much the amount of carbs you are consuming but the percentage of real food to refined crap in your diet.

Well said, Angeline. I think this was also a problem for the low-fat advocates. An 'honest' low-fat diet would include lots of low-fat fruits and vegetables, lots of whole grains, etc. I remember reading several articles from low-fat nutritionists trying to get the point across about the importance of whole foods. I don't think too many people heard them over the noise the food companies were making with their manufactured foods and their marketeers.

Lo-carb is in the same boat, here. The healthy whole foods we should be eating aren't going to make money for the food companies. Now that corp America is getting on board, they will start swamping the boat with all the manufactured products. As Kristine said, people will be duped into thinking these products are what low carb is all about.

We need a way to avoid the same trap the low-fat people fell into. We need to find a way to make it clear to everyday people that whole foods should be the backbone of the lo-carb diet. Manufactured foods have their place, but they should play backup to whole foods. How do we do this, though? Even Atkins Nutritionals is diving into the manufactured food business, so advocating whole foods would hurt their bottom line.

The good:
1: Frankenfoods typically have a fairly significant amount of protien and sometimes good fat.
2: They dont cause cravings for me like sugar filled foods do, so I dont typically overeat them like I used to overeat junk food.
The bad:
1: Many of them contain soy, which is very bad for you. I will not eat any that contain soy.
2: Many contain aspartame, a known neurotoxin.
3: Many are fortified with artificial viatimins, which are not as good for you as natural ones.

Some of these foods, like the chips made out of cheese, are very good, although expensive, but some of them, like shakes made from soy and hydrogenated oils are not fit for human consumption.

The bad:
1: Many of them contain soy, which is very bad for you.

Since when is soy bad for me? Could you point out reference articles or studies that suggest this?

Follow this link, it will tell you everything you need to know..

http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/index.html

Thanks Tbone, I will check out Weston A Price's views on soy!

I fear that the influx of more and more LC convenience foods and LC alternatives to carby foods will eventually undermine the wide-spread acceptance of LC WOEs as being healthy or effective.

Let's face it - Most people beginning a diet don't read the books or do the research -- they go out on the web and look up a bit of how to and get started. And then they get the rest of their 'education' from companies that sell LC products.

There is a huge LC kiosk at my WalMart - piled high with every Frankenfood imaginable - and there is one of those benches nearby for those who need a break. I sat for 15 minutes and watched at least a dozen ladies (all definitely not at goal weight) pile their carts near half full of that garbage. I asked four about how long they had been LCing - all were on Atkins less than 3 months - 2 in induction

The bottom line is that these dieters are not going to lose eating Frankenfoods based on what has happened to those on this and other boards who have attempted to add large quantities of these foods during induction / OWL. This will begin to erode the idea that LC WOEs work in the public eye. The biggest reason LC WOEs have become popular isn't medical studies or magazine articles or TV publicity - it's the fact that people have seen results in someone they know. The LC WOEs will be deemed another fad diet that doesn't work when people begin to see lack of results in people they know because they are eating LC Frankenfoods.

I really wish Atkins would start pushing the whole food during induction and OWL idea, but I doubt they will as they are marketing a goodly portion of the Frankenfoods available today.

Lots of people misuse diets and then blame their failure on the diet, rather than on their failure to eat properly or understand the diet. I don't think you can blame people eating low-carb snack foods and failing on the diet on the people making the foods. You'll always have people being ignorant or stupid. Creating low carb foods isn't going to affect that one way or another.

If the convience foods, shakes, protein bars weren't there, would they even attempt to try to limit their carbs? Would they be better off just staying on their old high carb junk food diets? Or is there some benefit to eating lower carb, even if they're making bad choices? I think there is some benefit.

Personally that kind of food doesn't appeal to me often because I truly enjoy eating my own style of low carb foods which include tons of veggies. Even if I could get an entire meal into something as tasty as a Snicker's bar, I really want a meal, not a candy bar for my meals!

But still, I'm delighted to foods being modified, like milk, crackers, waffles, breads, chips for low carb. I'm happy to see more interest in finding new alternatives to sugar, though I wish they'd find something better than sugar alcohols to mix with chocolate!

Some of these so called "frankenfood" ingredients, like I've already mentioned are nut flours, cauliflower (heard we might see a lowcarb french fry made of cauliflower), wheat proteins. Not exactly comparable to the pure glucose generating mess of flour in current snack foods. I think simply taking foods low carb is going to increase their protein and fiber content dramatically.

End user responsibility? You betcha. Although I found that eating the high carb snacks I just couldn't stop at a reasonable amount. I think that was my biology more than a lack of self-discipline. I don't have that problem with low carb snacks. Of course, when I did have that problem I simply stopped bringing that sort of food into the house.

I'm also afraid everyone is going to start pushing soy at us like mad and I have a lot of reservations about eating a lot of soy.

There, I just ate an big bowl full of salad with bell peppers, raw zuchinni, goat cheese, walnuts and had about a half dozen small low-carb crackers. The crackers are full of fiber, protein and have healthy fat in them. I enjoyed them, but something about the low-carb magic makes me not want to eat them all in one sitting.

I really hope one day I can find these crackers in a store rather than having to build them myself though.

BTW: Most baked foods won't contain aspartame because it doesn't withstand baking temperatures.