Nonsense Study Claims Low-Carb Diets Kill Faster
After seeing many blog posts hit my news feed in regard to a study on carbohydrate intake and mortality, I decided to actually take the time to read the study. Since I am on a ketogenic diet, my findings have relieved me: the study is utter nonsense.
A study that does not actually study low carbohydrate diets, suggests, based on inaccurate data, people on low carbohydrate diets have increased mortality risk. So when you see a headline like “No one should be doing the ketogenic diet” and references this study, be careful about what you believe in that article. Here’s why:
- This study is not a study on low carbohydrate diets. The particular statistics they reference to make this inference is actually for diets that are under 40% carbohydrate intake. This is not low carbohydrate intake, and therefore not a study on low carbohydrate diets. This alone is enough reason to scrap this study in terms of low carbohydrates.
- This study did not follow a scientific method. This means that it is difficult to draw evidence to give support to their claim. There are no control variables in this experiment, which means carbohydrate was not the only changing factor in these participant’s lives.
- The data collected is inaccurate. The data that they collected made participants answer a minimal survey of what they ate over the past year. What did you eat last year? That’s right, people are saying you are going to die quicker because of a bunch of survey questions. Here’s the best part: some participants took the survey twice over a decade or longer. Has your diet changed over a period of ten years? If so, your survey questions would be inaccurate.
So there you have it, now you can have my opinion. I believe this study was biased by having a higher focus on low carbohydrate intake versus high carbohydrate intake. While high carbohydrate intake was collected in the data, there was very little focus on what that data told the researchers in comparison to the “low carbohydrate” data.
I do not write blog posts, but this subject means a lot to me. Low carbohydrate diets are used in medical treatments, and I would hate to see someone turn away an effective treatment method because they are misinformed. When writers take a study like this and cause mayhem with it, they misinform the headline-reading public. Please take your time to write about this and spread the word as I did. Thank you.