Low-carb diet may reduce diabetes risk independent of weight loss

A study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight suggests that a low-carb diet may have benefits for people at risk of developing type 2 diabetes even if they don’t lose any weight. Researchers at The Ohio State University wanted to know what happens to obese people with metabolic syndrome, a precursor to diabetes, when they eat a diet low in carbohydrates but don’t shed any pounds. They found that more than half of study participants no longer met the criteria for metabolic syndrome immediately following a four-week low-carb diet.

The study included 16 men and women with metabolic syndrome. Over about four months, each study participant ate three month-long controlled diets—high-carb, moderate-carb, and low-carb—with a two-week break between diets. The order in which the participants ate the diets was randomly assigned. The research team ensured that the participants would not lose weight by providing them with pre-prepared meals that contained an amount of calories equal to their energy expenditure.

After eating the low-carb diet, the participants had a variety of significantly improved health measures, particularly lower triglycerides and improved cholesterol readings. Even though the low-carb diet contained 2.5 times more saturated fat than the high-carb diet, it decreased saturated fat in the bloodstream and was associated with an increase in the size of cholesterol particles in the blood, which decreases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The researchers also reported evidence of increased fat-burning efficiency after a low-carb diet and an improvement in blood sugar. They did not see statistically significant improvements in blood pressure or insulin resistance.

Three participants no longer had metabolic syndrome after the moderate-carbohydrate diet and one no longer had the syndrome after the high-carb diet. The researchers said that those results are likely explained by the fact that even these study diets—particularly the moderate-carb diet—represented a shift toward fewer carbs for study participants.

This research doesn’t address the potential long-term benefits and challenges of adopting a low-carbohydrate diet, and the researchers suggest that future long-term diet studies on people with metabolic syndrome need to include low-carb diets.

Study