Discover how strategic low-carb meal plans not only meet your daily nutrient needs but also enhance heart health by optimizing vital fatty acid and sodium-potassium balances, challenging conventional dietary wisdom.
Study: Nutrient analysis of three low-carbohydrate diets differing in carbohydrate content. Image Credit: Chinnapong / Shutterstock
An article published in Frontiers in Nutrition provides a detailed overview of the nutritional adequacy of three low-carbohydrate diets with differing carbohydrate content.
Background
The popularity of low-carbohydrate diets is increasing sharply worldwide, especially among middle-aged women. Low-carbohydrate diets contain less than 130 grams of carbohydrates per day, or 10–25% of energy from carbohydrates. Similarly, very low-carbohydrate diets contain 20–50 grams of carbohydrate or less than 10% of carbohydrate-derived energy per day.
A large pool of studies has found that low-carbohydrate diets are clinically effective in treating various chronic metabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, and polycystic ovarian syndrome.
A disparity in the prevalence of cardiometabolic diseases has been observed among people belonging to historically marginalized racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. As noted in the study, well-planned low-carbohydrate dietary plans can serve as an effective intervention to address such health inequity.
The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for total carbohydrates is 130 grams per day, estimated based on the average amount of glucose the brain utilizes daily. This standard has been a significant barrier to including low-carbohydrate diets in current dietary guidelines despite clinical evidence supporting their benefits.
In this study, scientists have estimated the macro- and micronutrient content of three 7-day low-carbohydrate diet plans to explore the nutritional adequacy of different forms of carbohydrate restriction.
Study design
The study analyzed the nutrient content of two very low-carbohydrate diets and a low-carbohydrate diet, which provided 20, 40, and 100 grams of net carbohydrate per day, respectively. Net carbohydrate refers to the total non-fiber saccharides that are digestible in humans.
The nutrients of public health concern identified in the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans were considered when selecting food items for diet plans. Specifically, these diet plans were designed based on dietary patterns utilized in studies of ketogenic and low-carbohydrate diets as well as commercial low-carbohydrate diets.
Diet plan nutrient content was analyzed using the US Department of Agriculture Food Data Central, which includes five distinct data types that provide information on food and nutrient profiles.
Important observations
The energy and nutrient analysis of three diet plans indicated that two very low-carbohydrate diets with 20 grams and 40 grams of carbohydrates (VLCD20 and VLCD40) and the low-carbohydrate diet with 100 grams of carbohydrate (LCD100) provide 91%, 94%, and 100% of the RDA for energy, respectively, in females aged 31 – 70 years.
In older females aged 51 – 70, VLCD20 and VLCD40 met the RDA for energy; however, LCD100 provided 12% higher energy than the RDA. In males, none of the diet plans could meet the RDA for energy across all age groups.
In both males and females aged 31 – 70, VLCD20, VLCD40, and LCD100 provided 37, 55, and 98% of the RDA for dietary carbohydrates, respectively. In females aged 31 – 70, VLCD40 and LCD100 provided 9 and 16% higher dietary fiber than the RDA, respectively. However, VLCD20 could not meet the RDA for dietary fiber in this age group.
In older females aged 51 – 70, VLCD20 provided adequate dietary fiber, and VLCD40 and LCD100 exceeded the RDA by more than 20%. In males aged 31 – 70 years, none of the diet plans could meet the RDA for dietary fiber; however, VLCD40 and LCD100 met the requirement in older males aged 51 – 70 years.
All three diet plans provided higher amounts of proteins than the RDA in males and females aged 31 – 70 years. However, the amounts were within the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range of 10–35% of energy.
Regarding saturated fat and sodium, all diet plans slightly exceeded the RDA. However, the study highlights that despite this, the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids was significantly lower than the average American diet, which may offer protective benefits against chronic diseases. The sodium-to-potassium ratio in all three diets was also favorable, remaining well below one, which is considered beneficial for cardiovascular health. This is particularly noteworthy given that most American diets exceed the recommended sodium intake and fall short on potassium, a pattern associated with increased cardiovascular risk.
Essential Micronutrients
All three diet plans exceeded the RDA for vitamins A, C, D, E, and K, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, B6, folate, and B12 in adults aged 31 – 70 and the RDA for calcium in adults aged 31–50. However, all the values remained below the Tolerable Upper Intake Level.
In females aged 31 – 50, all three diet plans met or exceeded the Estimated Average Requirement for protein and essential micronutrients.
Study significance
The study indicates that low-carbohydrate diets intentionally designed to provide lower amounts of carbohydrates than the RDA can deliver adequate amounts of fiber and micronutrients to Americans' diets.
Moreover, the findings suggest that these well-constructed diet plans not only meet but can potentially exceed the nutritional requirements for essential micronutrients in specific populations, particularly females aged 31–50, who are the most likely to follow these diets. This challenges the common perception that low-carbohydrate diets are nutritionally inadequate and underscores the importance of considering dietary quality, not just carbohydrate quantity, in dietary guidelines.
The study also emphasizes the importance of the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids and sodium to potassium provided by the diets, especially for individuals with existing metabolic health issues. These ratios could play a critical role in mitigating the risk of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, in populations adhering to low-carbohydrate diets.
Conflict of interest
Two of the authors, Lani Banner and Jonathan Clinthorne, are employees of, and Jonathan Clinthorne is a shareholder in, Simply Good Foods USA, Inc. Simply Good Foods owns Atkins and Quest Nutrition, brands that sell low-carbohydrate food products.
The remaining author, Beth Bradley, Senior Lecturer at the University of Vermont, declares that the research was conducted without any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Article Revisions
- Sep 10 2024 - Addition of a Conflict of interest notice, in response to a readers comment of "And now for the beginning of the wave of rebuttals to this pathetically defective study masquerading as Science which was picked up by a gullible media sensing any opportunity to spread disinformation about metabolic medicine."