Why your Low Carb Diet is hurting your Heart, and How to Improve it. [11 Studies]

More data on that 'proxy measure' I menti* oned: https://youtu.be/oBQtbiGYH3E 2 COMMON QUESTIONS: 1. What was the funding of these studies? Most of the studies were publicly funded. 2. Are these studies Randomized Controlled Trials? Most of the studies (except the first analysis mentioned in the video) were RCTs.

I went on a low carb/high fat diet in 1995 in order to control narcolepsy., limiting myself to around 20 g of carbs a day. I had not heard of the ketogenic diet, but I had been pressured a lot by doctors to go on a low calorie/low fat diet. This kind of diet was disastrous for me. So I experimented with a variety of diets until I saw that the low carb/high fat diet made drastic improvements in the neurological problems. I was surprised to find that I lost a lot of weight. My fasting glucose is in a good range, and also, other autoimmune problems cleared up, like psoriasis. My ldl cholesterol is a little high, but my hdl is also high, which seems to balance things out. Normal triglycerides. My blood pressure is normal. So, I've done this most of my ladult life. Is this the ideal diet? Probably for me. The standard American diet isn't the best diet for most people.

I was pre-diabetic, and had lots of overweight. Same as my mother, which was already diabetic and had metabolic syndrome. I eat 4 eggs and enough meat everyday and low/medium amount of carbs. But for a while I tried keto diet. At first the effects were immediately visible, I was even losing fat through excretion but also abdominal fat which is hard to lose. After a while it plateaued, so I changed the approach by adding the carbs again and just doing light cardio exercise but consistently. I also did intermittent fasting, intermittently. Both my mom and I have reduced our symptoms and my mom has almost reversed the diabetes (consider she is almost 70). We did remove ALL vegetable oils, except olive oil for salads and we use butter and coconut oil to cook instead. Also we eat no processed foods and rarely eat any sugars.

I’ve lost 150lbs on Healthy Keto. Been on it for 4 years. Had a heart catheterization done last March - all my arteries are clean, and I’m 62. My lipid profile is: Total Cholesterol = 169, Triglycerides = 42, HDL = 64, VLDL = 9, LDL = 96

Fascinating video. You mention observational studies and rightly point out that these can only pinpoint an association and not cause and effect, so are pretty meaningless unless that association is very strong. On proxy markers I can offer myself as an example. My LDL cholesterol has increased since I started a keto diet about a year ago. However, my weight has dropped by 25 lbs, my triglycerides are down, my HDL cholesterol is up and my blood glucose is down. According to my doctor my heart disease risk has gone down considerably since last year. I didn't tell my doctor what diet I was on but she was impressed enough to tell me "whatever you're doing, keep doing it". That's the best endorsement for keto I could ask for.

"...a 2014 review of 32 studies that included 27 randomized control trials involving over 650,000 people found no association between saturated fat intake and heart disease risk." The review concluded that, “Current evidence does not clearly support cardiovascular guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of total saturated fats.”

Since I started a high fat diet in 1983 to try and get a heart attack, the experiment has been unsuccessful. Two pounds or more fatty red meat daily, poultry cooked in lard, 3-12 eggs daily. Same weight at 54 as at 25, no heart disease symptoms. There is a lot more to this than your analysis implies.

Got rid of type 2 diabetes eating mostly meat. Lost 50 lbs. by stop eating bread, pasta & potatoes. Got also rid of my severe tooth decay by eliminating all refined sugar from my diet.

I have been doing an all meat diet for three years and am no longer diabetic, no more neuropathy no more inflammation ,kidneys are great,, eyes are better . Now I'm very lean and muscular and building more muscle with nutritional deficiencies. No carbs

Aren't you leaving out the possibility of hydrogenated vegetable oils that would typically be consumed with the saturated fat (ie. junk food or fried foods) as being the cause of increased heart disease risk in these studies? Excuse me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, heart disease risk has increased in recent decades which correlates with the increased consumption of these vegetable oils as well as increased sugar consumption etc.

Keto saved my life. I’ve been on it over 5 years. It is not difficult. There is a learning curve, tho. The hardest part for me was breaking the cycle of carb addiction, which involved the insulin response to all the carbs I was eating.

I have been on low carb diet (50 gm/day) and fit enough to compete with kids decades younger than me. I am a LMHR with a healthy TG/HDL ration as well as a very low hsCRP (05.). Headlines such as yours in this video used to scare me, but not anymore. I predict my heart will be the last thing to go (not sure which part of my body will go first).

@Physionic here is a point worth considering. Our bodies when going through lipogenesis starts by making saturated fats. Then, through elongation and desaturation, we wind up with (roughly) 2/3 monounsaturated and 1/3 saturated fats. These are what eventually gets stored in adipose, etc. When we lose fat weight, a good amount of what is released is actually monounsaturated (who needs olive oil when our body makes a bunch of it!) So consider the possibility that our own endogenously produced monounsaturated fat has an influence on the biomarkers. We've all heard the expression "the poison is in the dose". We all need glucose, but too much will wreak havoc. We all need salt, but too much will kill us. Has anyone considered that maybe saturated fats are fine for as long as they fall within a particular ratio with unsaturated? Many talk about omega 3/6 ratio, could an ideal ratio between saturated and unsaturated exist? Perhaps we could start with the ratio in which our body synthesizes, 1:2? In essense, quit the "saturated bad, unsaturated good" narrative and find where the most beneficial balance is. Food for thought (and possibly a research topic!)...

I still haven't seen very many studies that properly test a true ketogenic diet. They test high fat low carb diets, but often these diets still have far more carbs than would allow ketosis. Also, dietary fat percentages of 60% and higher often found in keto diets are hardly ever tested either. Considering entering ketosis has large effects on your fat metabolism and body as a whole, studies on ketosis-enabling diets specifically are necessary to make any strong arguments about it.

High fat isn't bad for the heart. It's high fat, high carbohydrate that's bad.

I never had a weight problem and was in very good shape, always playing soccer and exercising a lot, but at 52 I started to feel like I was getting very sick, headache every day, problems urinating, my blood pressure was going up, I had a fatty liver, high triglycerides, high cholesterol (since I was 30), skin problems, etc. But why? I've been exercising all my life, and as nutritionists recommend, I don't eat too much fat and not much meat!!... Oh well, like I used to hear, after 50 you're doomed to be sick!! No, it's not true, it was when I realized that I was suffering from chronic inflammation... Solution, zero carbs, first Keto diet for 2 years and carnivore for 6 months, I no longer have fatty liver, A1C at 5, triglycerides the lowest, blood pressure arterial 110-60, zero inflammation, no pain after playing soccer, lots of energy, etc... they have been lying to us all the time.

Went on Keto for 18 months in 2016. Ate meat (all kinds) fish, vegetables, (zero bread, pasta and rice) - lost 50 KILOS (From 130 to 80kg) and became superfit in my late 50s. With exercise stayed under 90 kilos til Covid lockdowns, even though I had abandoned strict Keto a couple of years before. Increased weight to 100 kilos and so recently went on carnivore which I plan to stay on til boredom defeats me - maybe three months. Already in a ketogenic state after 2 weeks and have lost probably 4 kilos already, with higher energy levels. Big difference this time with carnivore as opposed to just no refined carbs is the good feeling in my gut. The argument about plant toxins seems to be true. My only concern is if I will be able to go back to them! In other words, the carnivore diet may flush you out but leave you assigned to a monoculinary future!

When I was doing research on low carb high fat I ran into some problems after scrutinizing the studies. Many of the studies that claim to be low carb are in fact not low carb. They are high carb including sugars and simple carbs and high fat. The other thing to consider is there is a substantial part of the population whos APOb and LDL will shoot up with low carb diets. Some biohackers that have this physiology are trying to answer this question by doing their own study (their theory is that even though they have these bad cholesterol molecules they are usually big and fluffy molecules what they would call native cholesterol and less prone to oxidation and burrowing into the intima or so they claim) out of the majority population that does respond well to high fat low carb (myself included) all numbers start looking terrible for some time (maybe 4 to 12 weeks, not really sure) as you start mobilizing fats for energy all fats in the blood shoot up including triglycerides which will surely eventually drop as simple carb consumption drops. as an anecdote during this phase you can easily "hack" your numbers by feeding high carb for two days before the blood test and you will temporarily shift fat mobilization again. these things are usually not taken into account by researchers. I myself respond perfectly to low carb high fat. Trig. under 100 , LDL around 100, HDL at 85. that is with no exercise. with exercise my trig will drop in the 70s. even lower with fasted exercise.

Man, this is the exact type of content we need. Thanks, Nicholas!

Great episode! I wondered where you were going with this but that turned out to be very compelling. On the papers that showed no change in LDL because weight loss & unsaturated fat consumption, what was the background level of LDL? Did it go from too high to still too high?