Low-carb diets not a threat to bone health, study finds

TC · medicine forum Guru Joined: 02 May 2005 Posts: 1814

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/diet.fitness/06/08/low.carb.diet.reut/

Thursday, June 8, 2006; Posted: 12:01 p.m. EDT (16:01 GMT)

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Contrary to concerns raised by animal studies,
people on low-carbohydrate diets don't run a risk of weakening their
bones, Florida researchers report.

Scientists had suspected that such diets might leach calcium out of the
bones by causing the kidneys to excrete more acid, and research in
animals had supported this possibility.

To investigate whether this occurs in humans as well, Dr. John D.
Carter and colleagues from the University of South Florida in Tampa had
15 people follow a low-carb diet for three months, comparing them to 15
age- and sex-matched "controls" who ate a normal diet.

As described in the medical journal Osteoporosis International, study
participants ate less than 20 grams of carbohydrates daily for the
first month of the diet, and less than 40 grams of carbs daily for the
second and third months.

Carter and his team checked a number of measures of bone breakdown and
bone formation at one month and at three months. They found no
difference between the two groups in bone turnover, but the men and
women on the low-carb diet lost an average of 14 pounds compared with
2.3 pounds for the controls.

"Although the relatively short observation period does challenge the
generalizability of these findings, we suggest that a low-carbohydrate
diet used for weight loss does not increase bone turnover in humans,"
Carter and his colleagues conclude.

In a press release accompanying the study, Carter stressed that he does
not support low-carbohydrate diets for long-term weight maintenance,
given that they may stress the kidneys and cause people to eat more fat
and cholesterol.

***********

Heaven forbid. Low carb "may" stress the kidneys, apparently according
to this guy who fails to grasp that there hasn't been a single problem
for people on low carb with healthy kidneys. And heaven forbid we eat
more fat and cholesterol and become as obese and riddled with cvds as
those in France, oh wait, aren't they healthier and don't they eat more
fat and cholesterol than us? Oh what a paradox. What to do and what
assumptions by medical people to believe?

I get a kick out of these studies that can find nothing wrong with low
carb so they reluctantly concede that there is nothing wrong with low
carb while warning about imaginary possible problems that don't exist.
How can a reseacher say that everyone else in the field is wrong about
low carb? He can't if he wants to get future research funding. Damned
if he does and damned if he doesn't.

TC

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