Low-Carb vs. Low-Fat Diets: A Surprising New Perspective

Highlights  

• The low-carb vs. low-fat diet question may have a surprising answer.
• More and more Americans are obese despite eating less food and exercising more.
• Processed foods alter the microbes in the gut, predisposing the body to obesity.
• People may pass on their obesity-proneness to their children.
• Weight loss solutions like the Plenity weight loss device don’t affect gut microbes. 

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If you think there are more and more obese people in the streets, you’re not wrong. In 1980, 14% of American adults qualified as obese. Today, that number is 42% — almost every second person. We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic, even though we have been reducing the amount of food we eat since 2000. What’s going on? 

Low-carb vs. Low-fat Diet – Are We Overlooking Something?

The cause of obesity is obvious. With food more readily available than ever before in history, we have been overeating for decades. 

We’ve been told that the answer to obesity is simple: We just need to follow a low-fat diet and get more exercise. The problem is, many Americans have embraced low-fat diets for more than two decades, yet rather than decreasing, obesity has skyrocketed. 

Something doesn’t add up. 

Current research is suggesting that easily digestible carbohydrates may be the culprits for the exploding waistlines and scale-crushing weight gains. Could it be that instead of the low-fat approach, we should consider low-carb diets? The issue is anything but simple at this point, but research is beginning to point that way.

How Much We’ve Been Eating

Few countries in the world can produce as accurate and plentiful data concerning the diet habits of their citizens as the U.S. According to data from NHANES and the UN FAO, food availability and food consumption in the U.S. have held relatively steady since 2000. In 2018, we consumed slightly less food than in 1999. 

Yet, the percentage of obese people in the population has gone from 30% to 42% during the same period. And the trend shows no signs of abating. At this rate, being overweight is going to be the new normal. 

How can we grow more and more overweight even as we eat less and exercise more? 

Searching for an Explanation

Could the statistics be flawed? People may tend to underreport their calorie consumption, and science is aware that obese people are especially inclined to do so. 

Logic says, however, that even extreme underreporting cannot hide a statistical trend over two decades. Furthermore, before 2000, the food consumption statistics had been spot-on, showing an upward trend and based on the same data collection methods. 

Are we exercising less? Could it be that while we eat less, we also move around less and spend more time stuck to our computer and tablet screens? 

Official data seems to contradict this theory. We may be less physically active at our jobs, but we’re moving more in our free time.

People may be inclined to overestimate how much physical exercise they get, but independent data confirms the official findings. 

What We Eat May Be the Answer

We humans have struggled for millennia to produce enough food to sustain populations and allow for population growth. 

Then, beginning in 1950, the Green Revolution transformed agriculture, resulting in the age of abundance. The industrialization of agriculture has allowed us to produce inexpensive processed foods by the millions of tons, giving almost everyone in industrialized nations the opportunity to overeat. 

Although it has managed to put food on the table, the Green Revolution took a few shortcuts here and there. It has focused agriculture on selected, often genetically modified crops. 

While the crops themselves are often rich in vitamins and nutrients, processing methods have had a profound impact on the quality of the resulting food products.  

Consider these facts:

• A wide range of fibers, trace nutrients, and prebiotics is now processed out of food.
• Instead, we have more salt and sugar in everything we eat.
• Additives like various preservatives, emulsifiers, and stabilizers ensure that the food doesn’t spoil before stores can sell it to us.
• Artificial sweeteners and colors make food more attractive to the eye and the palate.

Missing out on essential nutrients and eating compounds nature never intended us to ingest is not without consequences.

What You Eat Is What Your Children Will Be

Eating heavily processed food alters the microbe ecosystem in your gut. In the absence of prebiotics, some microbes never manage to multiply. Others succumb to the onslaught of preservatives and artificial colors and flavors. Still, others may thrive under these circumstances and have population explosions of their own. 

Generation after generation, the altered gut biome becomes the new normal. This theory may explain the uncontrollable spread of obesity despite our newfound fondness for low-fat diets. 

• The gut microbiome changes, and the changes persist as children inherit them from their parents.
• How the metabolism uses the energy resulting from food also changes.
• Obesity becomes genetically ingrained, and one generation passes it on to the next. 

Much research is needed to explore the possibility of biological processes feeding the ongoing obesity epidemic, but the theory certainly warrants further investigation. 

Why a Low-carb Diet May Make More Sense than a Low-fat One

Modern foods contain easily-digestible, refined carbohydrates that lack a natural cell structure. Our bodies absorb these nutrients quickly, without allowing beneficial gut microbes to absorb their share. The result is an inflammatory microbiome in the gut. 

Animal research suggests that altered gut microbiomes lead to weight gain without changes in physical activity and food intake. 

Refined carbohydrates may also change how the body stores energy and uses fat to access the energy it stores. Through the gut-brain axis, they can regulate appetite as well. 

In short, refined carbohydrates increase your risk of obesity by: 

• Affecting the microbes in your gut
• Changing how your body stores and uses fat
• Interfering with your appetite
• Inflicting lasting changes that you can pass on to your children 

These theories and facts cast a new light on the low-carb vs. low-fat diet question. Observing a low-carb diet may save you — and possibly your children — from the health complications of obesity. 

A New Way to Lose Weight

While the low-fat diet’s reputation is taking a hit, low-carb eating doesn’t work for everyone, either, and it can be hard to sustain. 

If you’ve tried low-fat or low-carb dieting (or both) without success, the Plenity weight loss device may be for you. Plenity helps people eat less without impacting the gut microbiome. Plenity is an entirely new way to lose weight because it’s not a medication. It’s a device that delivers a fiber-type substance called cellulose to the stomach, where it expands and helps people feel full and desire less food. 

eDrugstore’s Plenity Welcome Kit

To help you start your weight loss journey on the right foot, we have knocked 15% off the price of the Plenity starter kit. 

Get a month’s supply of Plenity and take three capsules with water 20 minutes before lunch and dinner. That’s all there is to it! 

We’ll deliver your order quickly and discreetly, and you’ll be on your way to feeling healthier and looking great before you know it.