Quality of Carbohydrates May Be Key to Heart Health

Washington D.C. – New research examining associations between low-carbohydrate diet patterns and heart and metabolic risk factors may point to the need to consider carbohydrate quality.

Low-carbohydrate diets have been popular in recent years leading researchers to explore how carbohydrate quality and cardiometabolic health might be connected.

A new study supported by IAFNS and led by Tufts University researchers categorized low-carbohydrate diets into lower-quality or higher-quality carbohydrates based on their fiber content.  Low-carbohydrate diets, regardless of whether they were high- or low-quality, were associated with greater increases in waist circumference, but also with favorable changes in systolic blood pressure.

Eating a high-quality (higher fiber) low-carbohydrate diet was associated with favorable changes in blood cholesterol. But eating low-quality carbohydrates — even when on a low-carbohydrate diet — was associated with adverse blood glucose levels. It was not possible to differentiate low-carbohydrate diets by type of fat due to saturated and unsaturated fats being highly correlated.

The study was published in a recent issue of Nutrition Journal.

“Our findings do not support low-carbohydrate diets broadly within the context of metabolic health, but if one is going to eat a low-carbohydrate diet, the research is indicating that eating fiber-containing carbohydrates is the better alternative,” noted senior author Paul Jacques, a senior scientist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University.

The researchers examined data collected from 3,294 older adults participating in the Framingham Offspring Study, an observational study conducted over several years.

According to the lead author, Ghaida F. Aloraini, who conducted the work while a graduate student at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, “Altogether, our findings support recommendations on preserving high-quality carbohydrates in the context of a lower carbohydrate diet and replacing low-quality carbohydrate with more healthy energy sources.”

The paper is available here.