CUT BACK ON SUGARS AND REFINED CARBS
TO HELP PREVENT CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE
Had one dessert too many lately? Consider the following research as reasons to get serious about changing your eating habits. Several new studies have found that eating a lot of sugary foods, including refined high-gylycemic carbohydrates, can increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, fatty liver, and inflammation. Other recent research has shown that eating three low-carb meals in a row can significantly improve blood sugar and insulin levels-in effect, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and other health problems triggered by sugars and other refined carbs.
Emily Sonestedt, PhD, and her colleagues at Lund University, Sweden, analyzed health and diet data obtained from 26,190 men and women who did not have diabetes or heart disease when the study began. After an average of 17 years of follow up, the researchers identified 2,493 cases of fatal or nonfatal heart attack or death from ischemic heart disease.
Sonestedt and her colleagues focused specifically on the consumption of sucrose, the most common added sugar used in Sweden. The researchers reported that people who consumed 15 percent or more of their carbohydrate calories from sucrose were 37 percent more likely to have serious or fatal heart problems, compared with those who consumed less than 5 percent as sucrose.
A similar study focused on the risk of stoke. Researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Shanghai Jiaotong University China, analyzed data obtained from 64,328 Chinese women. Over 12 years of follow up, 2,991 cases of stroke were documented. Women eating the most high-glycemic foods, which trigger a spike in blood sugar levels, had a 19 percent higher
risk of stoke. However, women consuming the highest glycemic load in their foods-a more accurate measure-had a 27 percent greater risk of stroke.
Another study, by Stephen Bawden, PhD, of Nottingham University in the United Kingdom, placed eight young, healthy men on either a high or low-glycemic diet for seven days. A month later, they were placed on the alternate diet.
As the ressearchers had expected, blood glucose and insulin levels were much higher after the high-glycemic diet, compared with the low-glycemic diet. However, they reported that just one week on the high-glycemic diet significantly raised levels of liver fat and liver storage of sugar.
“This may have important clinical relevance for dietary interventions in the prevention and management of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,” wrote Bawden.
Finally, in a study conducted at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Katarina T. Borer, PhD, asked 32 healthy postmenopausal women to test the effects of a 30-percent carbohydrate and a 60-percent carbohydrate diet, with or without exercise added before the second and third meals.
It turned out that the third low-carb meal was the charm. After consuming the htird low-carb meal on one day, and without exercise, evening insulin levels decreased by 39 percent and evening insulin resistance decreased by 37 percent. In addition, levels of “glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide,” a hormone involved in the post-meal release of insulin, decreased by 48 percent.
Challem, Jack. “Cut Back on Sugars and Refined Carbs to Help Prevent Cardiovascular Disease.” Natural Grocers good4u, Nov. 2018, pp. 28–28.