Yesterday I received a few emails letting me know about the latest study on “low-carb” diets. The inept conclusion of the media being that “low-carb” diets cause heart disease! Oh noes! Thankfully, once again, researchers managed to waste a ton of money gathering crap data to make unfounded conclusions and then convinced the media to report on it like Godzilla had just attacked Tokyo.

Here is a great article explaining what really went on in the study and why the conclusions are a load of BS.

What Reading That Low-Carb Gives You Heart Disease Paper Actually Told Me.

For the attention span impaired, here are the highlights:

• They asked people to remember what they ate SIX MONTHS ago and assumed that’s what they ate for the next FIFTEEN YEARS! I can’t even remember what I ate yesterday and I can guarantee that I don’t eat the same thing for 15 years straight.
• The lowest carb group was 150g / day. That isn’t even low-carb, let alone Atkins.
• They didn’t differentiate between food quality, e.g. trans fats which we know causes heart disease. So if someone was in the “low-carb” group and ate motor oil every day, oops.
• The actual change in calculated risk was an extra 4 women per TEN THOUSAND. So even with all this bad data, it didn’t significantly increase heart attacks.

So yeah… it’s the same bad study and reporting that we see every day about “low-carb” diets. I haven’t even been following low-carb all that long and I think it’s the 5th ZOMG YOU ARE KILLING YOURSELF headline I’ve run into. I can’t understand how anyone is still paid to churn out this crap when low-carb has been around since 1970. You would think that they would either stop repeating the same flawed design or just give up.

UPDATE:

Denise Minger just posted a very detailed look at this study, its design and why they are all doomed to failure.