Low-carbohydrate diets, notably the Atkins Diet, were particularly popular in Britain and North America in the late 1990s and early 2000s. On the basis of a discourse analysis of bestselling low-carbohydrate diet books, I examine and critique genetic and evolutionary explanations for obesity and diabetes as they feature in the low-carbohydrate literature. Low-carbohydrate diet books present two...

Apart from an early observation by Umeda (1) of a single case in which a diet high in fat and low in carbohydrate led to a diminution of uric acid output, little attention was devoted to this phase of the uric acid problem prior to the introduction of the ketogenic diet in the treatment of epilepsy. This stimulated the study of the uric acid elimination during fasting in epileptic children, nor...

OBJECTIVE The glycemic index (GI) of dietary carbohydrate is thought to affect glucose homeostasis. Recently, the Effect of Amount and Type of Dietary Carbohydrates on Risk for Cardiovascular Heart Disease and Diabetes Study (OmniCarb) trial reported that a low-GI diet did not improve insulin sensitivity. We conducted this ancillary study of the OmniCarb trial to determine the effects of GI and...

Increasing evidence supports a low-carbohydrate diet for weight loss and improvement in traditional cardiovascular disease (CVD) markers. Effects on novel CVD markers remain unclear. We examined the effects of a low-carbohydrate diet (<40 g/day; n = 75) versus a low-fat diet (<30% kcal/day from total fat, <7% saturated fat; n = 73) on biomarkers representing inflammation, adipocyte dysfunction,...

This study was undertaken to evaluate the influence of a carbohydrate restricted diet, a subacute ethanol intake, and their combined effect on the kinetics of toluene in humans. Eight healthy male volunteers were exposed by inhalation at four different occasions to 200 mg/m3 2H8-toluene for two hours at a work load of 50 W after a one week low (30%) carbohydrate (CH) diet or high (60%) CH diet ...

BACKGROUND Genetic factors that predict responses to diet may ultimately be used to individualize dietary recommendations. We used physiogenomics to explore associations among polymorphisms in candidate genes and changes in relative body fat (Delta%BF) to low fat and low carbohydrate diets. METHODS We assessed Delta%BF using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) in 93 healthy adults who cons...

OBJECTIVE Evidence is sparse and contradictory regarding the association between low-carbohydrate diet score and type 2 diabetes risk, and no prospective study examined the association among Asians, who consume greater amount of carbohydrate. We prospectively investigated the association of low-carbohydrate diet score with type 2 diabetes risk. METHODS Participants were 27,799 men and 36,875 ...

CONTEXT Carbohydrate-restricted diets have been popular in recent years. The theoretical glycemic impact of these diets, compared with other popular weight-loss diets, has not been reported. OBJECTIVE To assess the glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) of 2 popular, carbohydrate-restricted diets (South Beach and Sugar Busters!) and compare them with a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet (Orn...