Yahoo News Online
20 July, 2007


Low-Carb Diets Combat Metabolic Syndrome

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter


FRIDAY, July 20 (HealthDay News) -- A low-carbohydrate diet helps people with a condition called metabolic syndrome, a collection of serious risk factors found in some obese individuals.

Now, a new study confirms the diet is effective against the syndrome, and the researchers think they've discovered how it works.

Eating a low-carb diet improves the hormonal signaling involved in obesity and improves the sense of fullness, allowing weight loss, according to study leader Matthew R. Hayes, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

"There is this strong interest in the field in carb-restricted diets in the treatment of obesity," said Hayes, who conducted the research while a doctoral student at Pennsylvania State University. "That [interest] comes from a number of controlled clinical trials that demonstrate overweight or obese people, maintained on low-carb diets, are successful if they adhere to the diet."

"It's definitely a hot debate in the field," Hayes added, whether the diets work. "We wanted to look at not only if it worked but how."

People with metabolic syndrome struggle with excessive abdominal fat; low levels of HDL -- good -- cholesterol; and insulin resistance or glucose intolerance, in which the body doesn't properly use insulin or blood sugar. Metabolic syndrome raises the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and other serious health problems, according to the American Heart Association.

Hayes and his colleagues studied 20 men and women with metabolic syndrome, instructing them to follow a low-carb diet similar to the popular South Beach Diet. For phase one, which lasted two weeks, the study participants were told to get 10 percent of their calories from carbohydrates. For phase 2, which lasted the remaining 10 weeks of the study, they were told to eat up to 27 percent carbs.

"The subjects did lose weight, and they lost total body fat. Their weight was a little over 200 pounds when the study started. By the end of the study, the subjects weighed about 193, 194. They lost close to 10 pounds during the three-month study."

And, Hayes said, "By the end of the study, about 50 percent no longer had metabolic syndrome."

The study participants didn't follow the diets strictly, he found. "Phase one intake was 25 percent [carbohydrates], on average," he said, rather than the 10 percent recommended. "Phase two carb intake was 35 percent," he said, although 27 percent was recommended. But it was a reduction from the participants' pre-study diet, which included 47 percent of calories from carbohydrates, he said.

To find out why the weight declined, Hayes' team did hormone assays, measuring fasting and post-meal blood levels of hormones associated with appetite and food intake, such as insulin, leptin and cholecystokinin (CCK).

"We found some changes in hormone levels," he said. "We saw a decrease in insulin, a decrease in leptin levels by the end of phase one. It was fast."

"By the end of phase 2, the insulin levels had crept up toward baseline; the leptin levels also rose, but it did not come back to the levels at baseline," Hayes said.

"These alternations in hormone levels acting together help reduce the amount of food consumed," he said. "There's a synergy. Based on the literature already out there, we are speculating that this synergy of hormones may be the mechanism explaining why people are satisfied with less food and [the low-carb diet] results in weight loss."

However, Hayes emphasized that the study, published in the August issue of The Journal of Nutrition, was small and preliminary, and more research is needed.

Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis and president of the American Dietetic Association, also urged caution when interpreting the study findings. "The study is small in size, and the population is not extremely diverse," she said, although she thinks the study design was good.

"The study was focused on metabolic syndrome, so the outcomes may not be transferable to people who are overweight but do not have the syndrome, since the cause of the syndrome is still not clear," Diekman said.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/2007072...l.T2HYrY2bVJRIF

Wow! Another wonderful article! Thanks!

Great article!!

But, just think how much healthier they would have been on Atkins!

So, if you add "healthy" people who don't have metabolic syndrome, it'll lessen the percentage of success. Why don't they say that (population not extremely diverse) when they're pushing the high carb/low fat and calling it healthy? It'll work if you're a person who's just eating too much, but if you have an insulin problem, it'll make it worse!

Another chink in the low-fat armor. One problem is LC has to be much more strict than low-fat to see good results-- I don't think the research community has grasped that concept yet.

I was proud of these researchers publishing this article - until I came across this



So how then do these researchers explain people that eat more - but low carb - and lose a ton of body fat?

It is not that people eat less on a low carb diet.

So what exactly are the symptoms of metabolic syndrome? Can one be tested for it?

I believe the symptoms are insulin resistance, high triglycerides, high LDL, low HDL, high blood pressure, high uric acid, abdominal fat and possibly higher blood sugars or diabetes.

Also PCOS in women

One book on insulin resistance that I own also included skin tags under the list of symptoms. I don;t have it to hand to check what else though.

Also a previous doctor I used to have included boils as a sytmptom - which are associated with PCOS and high blood sugars/diabetes

Edited to add:

symptoms of insulin resistance, which is a cornerstone of metabolic syndrome (I'd say it *is* metabolic syndrome, but that's just my own opinion)
http://www.medicinenet.com/insulin_resistance/page3.htm

I was a classic case of metabolic syndrome before I started low carbing. I had all the symptoms including PCOS.

Now, my cholesterol is 149 with great ratios, my blood pressure is 117/75, my fasting blood glucose is 85 and I am less insulin resistant. I still have highish uric acid and my insulin sensitivity can improve and I still have abdominal obesity but its all improving.

What torqued me off was my health was quickly going down hill and I visited a lot of doctors and one hospital to figure out what was wrong. All they could tell me was

Chronic Bronchitis (a respiratory problem) - we have a steroid you can take for the rest of your life

High blood pressure - we have a prescription you can take for the rest of your life

high triglycerides - can't remember what they were going to do for that

sleep apnea - wanted to give me one of those breathing devices

anxiety - another prescription - for the rest of my life

chronic fatigue - did not have a prescription or surgery for that - so it did not exist

bowel problems - they would have done all kinds of tests for my bowels and then had surgery to remove my colon - who needs a colon nowadays?

my vision was starting to go down hill - new glasses and contacts for that

on and on

my point is - I had all these symptoms and the doctors were like - they had a list of symptoms and a list of corresponding prescription drugs and/or surgery.

1. If they did not have a drug or surgery listed - then your problem did not exist.

2. They could care less about looking at all of these problem together

They just assume that because I was 40 years old - it was "middle age" starting to happen and nothing you can do except take all these prescription drugs or surgery.

One other tangent. In my grandparents generations - these were symptoms of old age - people got these symptoms in their 60s. Then my parents got them in their 50s. In my generation they are called symptoms of "middle age" and people get them in their 40s. Todays kids are getting their symptoms in their 30s. Do you see an alarming trend here?

Soon they will call these symptoms - signs of "adulthood". Soon they will have vending machines of insulin and glucose control and defibrillators in the high schools.

Somehow I stumbled across either an Atkins or Syndrome X book - turned to the symptoms page - and there was most of my health problems. That was me they were describing!

the symptoms generally include

chronic fatigue - just down right tired and exhausted all the time. Dragging yourself around. You may sleep for ten hours and then get up and have to move to the couch. There are two problems here. (1) high (and wild swings of) insulin make you tired (2) if you have sleep apnea (most overweight and insulin resistant of us do but don't realize it) you never really get into a deep sleep. Its like you sleep for a few minutes and wake up, sleep for a few minutes, wake up, etc

this is why I say that beating on kids and adults to "just exercise more" is pointless. You have to cut their insulin levels first - then they will want to "just exercise more". Telling a person with insulin problems to "just exercise more" is like beating a dead horse.

this has been a HUGE change in my life. I get at least twice as much done in each day now.

high triglycerides - is related to the huge swings in insulin. I won't have this 100% correct - but the general idea is - you eat a lot of high glycemic food - it is very quickly and easily changed into blood sugar - your body freaks out and says "look at all this blood sugar - I have to do something!" and starts pumping out a ton of insulin which converts the blood sugar to triglycerides and stores it in fat cells. Since what you ate was high glycemic (it is quickly converted to blood sugar), all of a sudden your blood sugar crashes down, and this sets off a lot of other problems - the worst being - you are starving for more high glycemic food.

Another tangent - your body wants to save things that it can use later. So it is trying to save all this blood sugar as fat. If you give your body good things - like protein - it will also try to save that - as muscle and lean body tissue (like grow your organs).

Huge insulin is usually accompanied by huge cortisol which is stress hormone. So I would say that feeling "Stressed" is another class symptom. Most of your other hormones get screwed up. Men have been known to wind up with more estrogen than testosterone, they start growing "man boobs" and ordering wine coolers (I am kidding about the wine cooler part - but not about the "man boobs").

breathing problem is another classic symptom - this can be chronic bronchitis, loud snoring, asthma, out of breath / winded often, often get colds or flu, coughing, etc. - pretty much anything with the respiratory tract. Everyone occassionally gets a cold or cough - but if you are starting to get more of them, and they are worse - I would say that is a symptom

I started getting bad colds - and finally I ended up congested for about 3 months during the winter

high blood pressure is a classic symptom - it may only be 140/90

Joint pain is a classic symptom - this is inflammation

bowel problems is a classic symptom - maybe your bowels get upset a lot easier, maybe you are having a lot more gas, etc - more inflammation

skin irritation and problems are a classic symptom - even more inflammation

being overweight is a symptom - and difficulty trying to lose weight

your vision starting to get worse - perhaps you need reading glasses

skin tags

mental problems - anxiety, depression, can not focus on something as long or as hard as you use to (they now call this ADD or ADHD or whatever).

A classic symptom is waking up at night around 2, 3 or 4 AM and worrying about stuff. This is a combination of your blood sugar crashing and the anxiety.

I use to worry a lot - and my life (but not my health) was great. Now that my health is great (but not so much my life) I worry that I don't worry about how much my life sucks. I guess that pretty sums me up to be a basket case :-) (sorry I have to have at least a little bit of fun in these posts)

regarding tests - there are some tests -

there is a "glucose tolerance test" (or something like that) where you drink sugar water and they measure your blood sugar and insulin level over time.

there may be insulin resistance tests, there are type 2 diabetes tests, there may be cortisol tests

My point is - you can have every symptom of *PRE* type 2 diabetes - run a type 2 diabetes test - and most doctors will tell you - "you do not have type 2 diabetes - you are just approaching old/middle age".

The best thing you can do is try the low carb diet, supplements, and exercise for two months and see how you feel at the end of two months. Dr Atkins would recommend that everyone get a full and complete physical before starting low carb diet. And then schedule another two months later. Your doctor will be stupefied.

dental problems are a classic sign of pre type 2 diabetes / syndrome x / metabolic syndrome. It is usually a sign of inflammation.

Look at the work of dentist Weston A Price back in the 1930s.

funny how we see studies every couple of months that dental problems can indicate heart disease. or dental problems can indicate some other medical problem that is also a symptom of pre type 2 diabetes / syndrome x / metabolic syndrome.

No - dental problems are a sign of poor nutrition. And poor nutrition causes dental problems, heart attacks, etc - most of these other problems that researchers tie a relationship to - from dental problems.

BTW - I had to have a root canal about the same time as all these other problems.