A Low Fat Diet or
Low Carb Diet?
Here's the Latest Skinny.

 A Low Fat Diet just might be setting you up  for a heart attack.

New research shows that a low fat diet will lower the amount of HDL cholesterol in your body. I can almost hear you saying, "And your point is?"

In a nutshell HDL cholesterol is composed of large buoyant particles known, as APO A1, which are "anti-atherogenic." This means that they act like guardian angels to reverse heart disease by scooping up the plaque that could clog your arteries and cause a heart attack or stroke.

According to Reuters Health, researchers at Buffalo's State University of New York tracked two similar a groups of healthy, sedentary adults. The first group
ate a low fat diet (less than 20 percent of calories from fat) for three weeks.

A second group chowed down on a high-fat eating plan, which consisted of 50% or more of calories from fat.

Researchers found that the levels of good cholesterol (HDL) in those who ate the high fat diet plummeted by more than 14% compared to those who consumed a low fat diet. Further, the high fat diet group increased their HDL cholesterol count to 63 mg/dl, which is near the top of the desired range.

If you've been concerned that a low carb diet could increase your risk of a heart attack...worry not. A new study just reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, proves once again that eating a low-carb, high-fat diet does not raise the risk of heart disease.

Let's define the right kind of low carb diet. A better term would be "slow carb." We want the carbohydrates that are high in fiber and digest slowly to avoid an insulin rush. These include plenty of vegetables, beans and whole grains. Limit the sugary carbs, white flour and pasta to special occasions.

The study, which examined more than 82,000 women over 20 years, found that those who got their carbohydrates from refined sugars and processed foods nearly doubled their risk of heart disease.

During the term of the study, food labels were not required to disclose the amount of trans fats in the products, and the research did not determine the types of fat that were consumed by the subjects.

One of my pet peeves is that the experts commonly lump all types of fat in the same pot.

All fat is not created equal.

There are some fats and oils that are essential to good health and most Americans do not get nearly enough of them. coconut oil benefits our heart, brain and immune system in many ways.

There is one fat that can greatly shorten your life...trans fat. You should avoid it like the plague. Whenever you see “partially hydrogenated oil” on the label you know it has trans fats.

In the ongoing Nurses Health Study each 2% increase in trans fat consumption converted to a whopping 93% increase in coronary heart disease.

If you want a healthy heart the low fat diet comes in second best to the common sense approach of eating complex carbohydrates and lots of healthy fat.

If you haven't got around to exercise yet check out Dr. Sears Pace program that gets great results in less than 20 minutes per day.
 Gene

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