Eating fewer carbs might help your heart, but not your weight
Low‐carbohydrate diet score is associated with improved blood pressure and cardio‐metabolic risk factors among obese adults
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Higher low-carb diet adherence was associated with higher BMI and fat mass, not lower.
This contradicts the widespread belief that low-carb diets are inherently weight-loss diets. Most people assume low-carb = weight loss, but here, the opposite pattern was observed.
Practical Takeaways
If you're obese and struggling with blood pressure or cholesterol, reducing carbs might help—even if the scale doesn’t move.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Higher low-carb diet adherence was associated with higher BMI and fat mass, not lower.
This contradicts the widespread belief that low-carb diets are inherently weight-loss diets. Most people assume low-carb = weight loss, but here, the opposite pattern was observed.
Practical Takeaways
If you're obese and struggling with blood pressure or cholesterol, reducing carbs might help—even if the scale doesn’t move.
Publication
Journal
Physiological Reports
Year
2022
Authors
M. S. Pour Abbasi, Niloofar Shojaei, M. Farhangi
Related Content
Claims (6)
Eating fewer carbs might help lower your blood pressure if you have high blood pressure.
If you're an adult with obesity, sticking more closely to a low-carb diet might help lower your top blood pressure number and overall cholesterol a little — but the data isn't strong enough to say for sure, and it doesn't seem to affect your bottom blood pressure number or triglycerides.
If you're an adult between 20 and 50 who's obese, eating fewer carbs and more fats might be linked to healthier blood pressure, better cholesterol, and lower triglycerides — but we can't say for sure that the diet caused these benefits from this study alone.
Even though low-carb diets can improve some health numbers, in people who are already obese, sticking more closely to a low-carb eating pattern might actually go hand-in-hand with having more body fat and a higher weight.
If obese adults in Iran eat fewer carbs and more fat, they might be less likely to have a group of health problems like high blood pressure and high blood sugar that raise heart disease risk.