fatty liver

[didi]

I just read of a recent study with 18 participants on either a low calorie diet or a low carb diet. They all were diagnosed with fatty livers. Those on the low carb diet lost more fat from their livers than those on the low calorie. I do not know what to make of this. I do not know what they considered low carb. Usually when someone says he is eating low carb that means he is eating high fat and meat. Dr. Mirkin who reported this study on his web site said to cut out fruit juices and sodas, white flour etc. McDougall is high carb but he does not advocate white flour, juices, soda pop etc.

I wonder what the subjects were eating? The experiment was 2 weeks long. If they substituted all grains and starchy vegetables with meat and fat and still lost fat in their livers, what does this mean?

Didi

[GeoffreyLevens]

Need to read the actual, published study, the whole thing not just the abstract, to really tell anything at all about it.

[frozenveg]

GL is right. Just as an example of how people (and their doctors) view "carbs," a work associate who has diabetes said at a potluck a few weeks back, "I have eaten my limit of 'carbs,' so pass me the broccoli and celery." I couldn't let it pass, and told her the veggies were almost 100% carbs, and she looked at me like I had 3 heads.

[Lacey]

GL is right. Just as an example of how people (and their doctors) view "carbs," a work associate who has diabetes said at a potluck a few weeks back, "I have eaten my limit of 'carbs,' so pass me the broccoli and celery." I couldn't let it pass, and told her the veggies were almost 100% carbs, and she looked at me like I had 3 heads.

The ignorance of people sometimes astounds me. I was grocery shopping and ran into a friend who was on a low-carb diet. The grocery store had recently started carrying angus beef and the were heavily promotng it. My friend did not know if she had ever had angus beef and wanted to be sure it was okay on her low-carb diet. She asked the lady at the meat counter if angus beef was low-carb. I thought she was making a joke and I laughed. The woman behind the counter answered very seriously that she did not know so she ran off the food label and handed it to my friend who decided that angus beef was just as low-carb as the beef she had been eating. It was only then that I realized that my freind was dead serious. She thought that some animals might produce muscles that contained carbohydrates.

Back to the subject though, I agree that one really must read the study, not the abstract to see if the conclusions seem reasonable. I have read many abstracts or articles in magazines or newspapers that compare diets and found that what was being called "low-fat" or "low-carb" was often no such thing. Or that people were not really following the diet they said they were following.

[Gweithgar]

Well, the thing about "fatty liver" is that anything you do to lose weight will gradually de-fat your liver. And if people on a "high carb" diet are also eating a lot of fat (and most carbs out there in SAD-land come lathered with fat of one kind or another), they aren't doing their fatty livers any favors, and could well be eating more calories from fat than someone on a low-carb diet. I'll stick with my Dr. McDougall, thank you.