Low-carb diets have become trendy and well-liked. The Atkins diet is an example. It encourages eating red meat which contains lots of saturated fat. This sounds weird but the authors of this type of diet believe that high-carb diets lead to higher insulin levels, increased appetite, obesity and insulin resistance.
How do these diets work? They have low calories, that's true, but the loss is in the release of water due to restriction of carbohydrate intake. Despite the fact that much of the loss of weight in the first two weeks is due to water weight loss, people believe it's the way to go.
The trouble is as soon as one uses up the stored carbohydrate, the body starts using the fat in the fat cells. When broken down, they form ketones and this can be dangerous to people with diabetes. Why? Because this can lead to a condition called ketoacidosis.
So should one go on a low-carb diet? Well, to lose weight when one is obese is healthy. When the lost weight can be long-lasting, then the health is improved but there are no long-term studies to prove this point. Besides consuming foods high in saturated foods can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke so the benefit of weight loss can be outweighed by the harmful health effects of the saturated fats.
Another problem is that as the body excretes water so do minerals flush out that could lead to kidney stones and bone loss. That's why this diet suggests buying a long list of supplements. The benefit of this diet lowers blood sugar level, but if one is on insulin and medications, careful monitoring is vital to prevent hypoglycemia.
Be careful of foods that are sold for people on a low-carb diet. Often they're expensive and high in calories. And watch out for the high amount of protein in this diet as this can make the kidney work too hard. And the diabetics have enough problem with kidney risk.
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