Should we rethink the role of carbs in obesity? | Medical News Today

One comprised around 10% carbohydrate and 75% fat, while the other consisted of approximately 75% carbohydrate and 10% fat.Participants were allowed to eat as much or as little as they wanted.As predicted by the carbohydrate-insulin model, the high carb diet resulted in a larger spike in insulin levels following meals.However, participants on the high carb diet consumed fewer calories and reported that they felt just as satisfied after eating compared with those on the low carb diet.Only the high carb diet resulted in a significant loss of body fat.Speakman and Hall argue that insulin affects many organs around the body, and not just after mealtimes.They write that its role in regulating body fat “is best understood as part of a dynamic network of factors controlling and mediating the effects of energy imbalance.”For example, they say high insulin levels, combined with signals from fat tissue, tell the brain to reduce energy intake when the amount of body fat rises above a critical threshold.David Ludwig, M.D., Ph.D., professor of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA, a leading proponent of the carbohydrate-insulin model, questioned the research cited in the article by Speakman and Hall.He told Medical News Today that the study in mice was “strongly biased” because the low carb diets contained large amounts of saturated fat.“In rodents, saturated fat causes severe inflammation and metabolic dysfunction, precluding a meaningful test of the [carbohydrate-insulin model],” he said.He added that other studies have found that rodents on high carb diets rapidly develop obesity.