Low-carb diet improves cholesterol levels

Adhering to a plant-based, low-carbohydrate diet is effective in promoting weight loss and is superior to standard low-fat diets in reducing cholesterol levels.

Although low-carb diets based on animal proteins can promote weight loss, they often fail to reduce LDL, bad cholesterol. Whether substituting plant sources for the proteins might help had not been studied.

To investigate this, researchers from Canada assessed weight loss and cholesterol changes in 47 overweight adults with high cholesterol who were randomly assigned to receive a plant-based low-carbohydrate diet or a high-carbohydrate comparison diet for 4 weeks.

The intervention diet, also referred to as the "Eco-Atkins" diet, consisted of 26 percent carbohydrate, 31 percent vegetable protein, and 43 percent vegetable oil. The comparison diet was 58 percent carbohydrate, 16 percent protein, and 25 percent fat. Both diets were given at 60 percent of calorie requirements.

The participants in each group lost comparable amounts of weight, roughly 0.8 kg. However, the Eco-Atkins diet was better than the comparison diet at reducing LDL-cholesterol levels. The Eco-Atkins diet was also linked to better reductions in blood pressure than the comparison diet.

The above findings indicate that a low-carbohydrate plant-based diet has lipid-lowering advantages over a high-carbohydrate and provide insight into a more effective and possibly safer tactics for designing higher-protein diets for weight loss and cardiovascular risk reduction.