2mo ago

Paper - Associations of fats and carbohydrate intake with cardiovascular disease and mortality in 18 countries from five continents (PURE): a prospective cohort study

TLDR - Fat is good for you, sugar/carbs not so much

Full paper can be found here

Higher carbohydrate intake was associated with an increased risk of total mortality

Intake of total fat and each type of fat was associated with lower risk of total mortality

Higher saturated fat intake was associated with lower risk of stroke

Total fat and saturated and unsaturated fats were not significantly associated with risk of myocardial infarction or cardiovascular disease mortality.

Global dietary guidelines should be reconsidered in light of these findings.

3 comments

"You don't have a nice little drug rep brining you lunch on a Tuesday telling you about the PURE study do you?"

However, the absence of association between low carbohydrate intake (eg, <50% of energy) and health outcomes does not provide support for very low carbohydrate diets. Importantly, a certain amount of carbohydrate is necessary to meet short-term energy demands during physical activity and so moderate intakes (eg, 50–55% of energy) are likely to be more appropriate than either very high or very low carbohydrate intakes
This conclusion seems to be outside of the data collected. They are making the link between very low carbohydrate diets (<50%, so 49%), and "short term energy demands". This is linking a preconceived notion to a misnomer term. In the low carb high fat research sphere, 49% would be considered high carb, and well outside of the level needed to maintain nutritional ketosis. It doesn't even touch upon gluconeogenesis and the fact it is established in nutritional literature there isn't a thing such as a essential carbohydrate. Note the lack of references for this statement
This also makes the assumption that there we would see a linear benefit for carbohydrate reduction, its a theory that should be tested, not assumed. (It's a step function, with nutritional ketosis/insulin sensitivity being the step)
This is a great paper, doing good research, but I think its overstepping its remit making conclusions / recommendations for properties it was not studying.
- Well put.
  That's not low carb, that's nominally reduced carb in the US since the carb-craze low-fat nonsense since the 1980's.