The raison d'etre of this website is to provide you with hard scientific information which may help you make informed decisions in your quest for health (so far I have blogged concise summaries of over 1,500 scientific studies and have had three books published).

My research is mainly focused on the effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and statin drugs on health. If you know anyone who is worried about their cholesterol levels and heart disease, or has been told to take statin drugs you could send them a link to this website, and to my statin or cholesterol or heart disease books.

David Evans

Independent Health Researcher

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets, similar in composition to the recommendations of the American Diabetes Association, have deleterious health effects when consumed by patients with type 2 diabetes

This study was published in the American Journal of Medicine 1987 Feb;82(2):213-20

Study title and authors:
Deleterious metabolic effects of high-carbohydrate, sucrose-containing diets in patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.
Coulston AM, Hollenbeck CB, Swislocki AL, Chen YD, Reaven GM.

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3544839

The effects of variations in dietary carbohydrate and fat intake were studied in patients with type 2 diabetes. Two test diets were utilized, and they were consumed over two 15-day periods. One diet was low in fat and high in carbohydrate, and corresponded closely to recent recommendations made by the American Diabetes Association, the other diet was higher in fat.

The diets consisted of:
(i) 60% carbohydrate, 20% protein, 20% fat (low fat diet).
(ii) 40% carbohydrate, 20% protein, 40% fat (high fat diet).

The study found:
(a) Unhealthy high glucose and insulin levels were significantly higher when patients consumed the low fat diet compared to the high fat diet.
(b) Unhealthy high triglyceride levels were higher when patients consumed the low fat diet compared to the high fat diet.
(c) Levels of the healthy high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol were reduced when patients consumed the low fat diet compared to the high fat diet.

The results of this study document that low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets, similar in composition to the recommendations of the American Diabetes Association, have deleterious health effects when consumed by patients with type 2 diabetes.