Low Carb Diet - The Truth and the Lies

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In the 1990s Dr. Robert Atkins saw it fit to publish another diet book titled “Dr. Atkin’s New Diet Revolution”. The principles of maintaining a low-carb diet were essentially the same as advocated by his book; save for one detail that he changed. He suggested that the amount of animal fat and should be controlled where possible. Trans fats should be eliminated. This fixed the main problem with the previous diet recommendation and fit the requirements of most dieticians. It is said that this new book started the craze for the low-carb diet which is even alive today, nearly some 20 years after the last book was written.

The Main Theories

Most people would automatically associate a low-carb diet to the Atkin’s Diet. This is not a true representation of a low-carb diet. Although the Atkin’s Diet is a low-carb diet, it certainly isn’t the only low-carb diet out there. The principles of being low-carb are shared with many different diets like the Zone Diet, Go Lower Diet, South Beach Diet and many more diets to slim. The thing is there is no proper definition on what a low-carb diet is and as such classification in itself is rather ambiguous. Suffice to say, a low-carb diet is one where the amount of carbohydrates are restricted to severely reduce insulin production and push the body metabolism into ketosis.

The first low-carb diets were developed based on very loose principles and understanding of the human anatomy. Rather it was based on a study of what human ate before we become farmers. Experimenting with this diet showed that it regulated the human weight back to the ideal weight class of most people according to their height. Today with a much better understanding of the different processes in the body we can understand the theoretical advantages that low-carb diets have.

The main processes that are affected by low carbohydrate diets are the affect on blood sugar levels and its regulation by our bodies. There are basically two main hormones that are related to the regulation of blood sugar levels. The first is insulin which is produced by the pancreas and the second is glucagons. Insulin is produced to lower blood sugar levels while glucagons work in opposite by raising blood sugar. Human need to maintain the tight range of blood sugar thus it has to be regulated actively by the body to maintain good health. The problem is that normal western food which is rich in carbohydrates causes spikes in blood sugars which the body must contend with by producing insulin which sometimes can crash the blood sugars causing a severe see-saw pattern which is very bad for you over time.

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