Skip to main content

Low-Carb Diets Combat Metabolic Syndrome - Forbes.com

Low-Carb Diets Combat Metabolic Syndrome - Forbes.com

Low-Carb Diets Combat Metabolic Syndrome
07.20.07, 12:00 AM ET

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.

[...]

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Insulin Resistance- cause of ADD, diabetes, narcolepsy, etc etc

Insulin Resistance Insulin Resistance Have you been diagnosed with clinical depression? Heart disease? Type II, or adult, diabetes? Narcolepsy? Are you, or do you think you might be, an alcoholic? Do you gain weight around your middle in spite of faithfully dieting? Are you unable to lose weight? Does your child have ADHD? If you have any one of these symptoms, I wrote this article for you. Believe it or not, the same thing can cause all of the above symptoms. I am not a medical professional. I am not a nutritionist. The conclusions I have drawn from my own experience and observations are not rocket science. A diagnosis of clinical depression is as ordinary as the common cold today. Prescriptions for Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, etc., are written every day. Genuine clinical depression is a very serious condition caused by serotonin levels in the brain. I am not certain, however, that every diagnosis of depression is the real thing. My guess is that about 10 percent of the people taking ...

Could Narcolepsy be caused by gluten? :: Kitchen Table Hypothesis

Kitchen Table Hypothesis from www.zombieinstitute.net - Heidi's new site It's commonly known that a severe allergy to peanuts can cause death within minutes. What if there were an allergy that were delayed for hours and caused people to fall asleep instead? That is what I believe is happening in people with Narcolepsy. Celiac disease is an allergy to gliadin, a specific gluten protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye. In celiac disease the IgA antigliadin antibody is produced after ingestion of gluten. It attacks the gluten, but also mistakenly binds to and creates an immune reaction in the cells of the small intestine causing severe damage. There is another form of gluten intolerance, Dermatitis Herpetiformis, in which the IgA antigliadin bind to proteins in the skin, causing blisters, itching and pain. This can occur without any signs of intestinal damage. Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a similar autoimmune reaction to gliadin, however it usually involves the...

Blue-blocking Glasses To Improve Sleep And ADHD Symptoms Developed

Blue-blocking Glasses To Improve Sleep And ADHD Symptoms Developed Scientists at John Carroll University, working in its Lighting Innovations Institute, have developed an affordable accessory that appears to reduce the symptoms of ADHD. Their discovery also has also been shown to improve sleep patterns among people who have difficulty falling asleep. The John Carroll researchers have created glasses designed to block blue light, therefore altering a person's circadian rhythm, which leads to improvement in ADHD symptoms and sleep disorders. […] How the Glasses Work The individual puts on the glasses a couple of hours ahead of bedtime, advancing the circadian rhythm. The special glasses block the blue rays that cause a delay in the start of the flow of melatonin, the sleep hormone. Normally, melatonin flow doesn't begin until after the individual goes into darkness. Studies indicate that promoting the earlier release of melatonin results in a marked decline of ADHD symptoms. Bett...