Today we'll talk about carbohydrates. We'll find out if they really make us fat, if they can cause addiction, and if they can lead to diabetes or obesity. And whether it's really possible to give up carbohydrates for life without losing anything.
1. Do carbohydrates make us fat?
No, carbohydrates themselves don't cause weight gain. It's just that foods high in simple carbohydrates, such as sweets, pack a lot of calories into a small amount and provide instant gratification. Therefore, they're easier to overeat than, say, high-protein foods.
Some people can eat a couple of pieces of cake or an entire chocolate bar in one sitting, significantly increasing their caloric intake. And if you constantly consume more than you burn, excess weight is just around the corner. That's why, of course, there's a myth that carbohydrates make you fat.
But if you choose healthy carbohydrate-rich foods—vegetables and fruits, whole grains and whole-grain breads, and legumes—you'll be able to control your weight more easily. These foods help you stay full, making it much harder to overeat.
2. What is the difference between fast and slow carbohydrates?
Fast carbohydrates are simple sugars consisting of glucose and fructose. They are found in table sugar, honey, sweets, juices, and soda. These carbohydrates quickly enter the bloodstream and are used for energy or stored as fat cells.
Slow carbohydrates also include glucose and fructose, but they're bound to other molecules. It takes longer for the body to digest them and convert them into simple sugars. This is why foods with slow carbohydrates provide prolonged satiety.
So, you eat a chocolate bar, and the glucose and fructose are quickly absorbed in the intestines, enter the bloodstream, and are distributed throughout the body. Your blood sugar drops, and half an hour later, you're hungry again. But if you had buckwheat for lunch, for example, it will release glucose slowly, and you won't feel hungry for several hours.
Fiber is also considered a carbohydrate. This dietary fiber is found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes. Insoluble fiber is not digested and serves as food for bacteria in the gut. It is essential for maintaining normal microbiota and stool formation.
One of the healthiest and most well-researched diets is the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes foods with slow-digesting carbohydrates and fiber—vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes. While the diet does include fast-digesting carbohydrates, they're in very small amounts—only 5% of the total diet.
A healthy diet doesn't exclude fast carbohydrates, it just shouldn't be the mainstay of the diet. Unfortunately, this rule is often violated these days, even in school cafeterias.
I recently attended a nutritionists' congress, where they discussed nutritional issues in secondary schools. Children often refuse meals that are served as main courses, opting instead for pastries and chocolate bars. As a result, the child remains hungry and doesn't get the necessary nutrients, fiber, and vitamins. Over time, such habits can lead to obesity.
Another problem that can lead to rapid weight gain is replacing regular water with juices. People believe these drinks are healthy because they contain vitamins. In reality, juices contain a huge amount of fast carbohydrates—fructose and added sugar.
Yes, apples do contain fructose, but they also contain a lot of dietary fiber. Therefore, the sugar will be absorbed slowly. Furthermore, to get as many carbohydrates as a glass of juice, you'd have to eat, say, five apples in a row. Not everyone has the courage to do that, and it would take quite a bit of time. A glass of juice, on the other hand, can be swallowed in five seconds without even noticing.
3. Do carbohydrates really increase the risk of disease?
An unbalanced diet, low in protein and high in saturated fats and simple carbohydrates, can indeed lead to health problems, such as the development of metabolic syndrome. This is a cluster of symptoms that includes abdominal obesity: a waist circumference greater than 102 cm for men and 88 cm for women, elevated cholesterol, blood pressure, and fasting plasma glucose levels. Furthermore, metabolic syndrome is associated with a disrupted microbiome and chronic low-grade inflammation. All of this increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
Carbohydrates themselves do not increase disease risk.
You can gain weight and increase your waistline both with a high-fat diet and even with a balanced, nutrient-rich diet. Consuming more calories than you need can also lead to obesity and metabolic syndrome.
The only exception is drinks with added sugar. Sugary sodas significantly increase the risk of metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and fatty liver disease than cookies or chocolate bars. If a person drinks juice or soda like water, their blood sugar levels are constantly elevated, and over time, the body will begin to lose sensitivity to glucose, which can lead to diabetes.
However, the consumption of slow carbohydrates can be considered a preventative measure against the development of diseases, since such products help reduce the calorie content of the diet and support intestinal health due to their fiber content.
So, carbohydrates don't cause disease. The risks increase due to chronic overeating and increased fat mass, especially around the waist. If you love sweets but manage your weight or exercise regularly enough to burn off all the calories, nothing serious will happen.
4. Are carbohydrates at night bad?
In fact, your body doesn't care at all when you consume carbohydrates. The digestive system doesn't have a schedule for directing glucose to muscle for burning or to fat for storage.
What matters here is how many calories you burn. From this perspective, the advice to limit carbohydrates in the evening is understandable, since people tend to be more active in the first half of the day than at night. However, if you workout late in the evening, the carbohydrates will be burned just as quickly as if you had hit the gym in the morning.
That is, if a person, for example, works out in the gym in the morning, is active at work, picks up the children in the evening and takes them to their clubs, and doesn’t even use the elevator, a piece of cake in the evening will not harm him in any way.
If he sits in front of the computer all day, works from home and only goes to the refrigerator, then it doesn’t matter whether he eats cake in the evening or in the morning – the excess calories will still be stored as fat.
5. Can a person live without carbohydrates at all?
Yes, it's possible. If a person completely eliminates carbohydrates or significantly reduces their intake, their body begins to use fat as an energy source, converting it into ketone bodies. And it can easily survive for quite a long time on this fuel.
All popular keto diets are based on this mechanism. There is evidence that this diet can improve seizure control in epilepsy, but that's where its benefits end.
Unless someone has epilepsy, cutting carbohydrates won't improve their brain function. The MIND diet, a combination of the Mediterranean and DASH diets, has been shown to be effective for supporting cognitive function. It's rich in slow-burning carbohydrates from vegetables and leafy greens, berries, whole grains, legumes, and nuts.
People often report losing significant weight on the keto diet, feeling lighter and more energized. While this diet may initially accelerate weight loss, progress quickly plateaus. Systematic reviews show that weight loss on the keto diet peaks after about five months, after which weight gain returns.
Incidentally, the keto diet is never ranked among the best diets. The Mediterranean, DASH, MIND, and other diets rich in slow-burning carbs consistently rank there. Why is this?
The keto diet is very restrictive. People have to limit vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes to avoid exceeding their carbohydrate intake, all of which are valuable sources of vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Therefore, a restrictive diet can lead to deficiencies, harm gut microbiome, and cause a host of unpleasant side effects, such as headaches, constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, bad breath, muscle cramps, and weakness.
The keto diet is difficult to maintain. In one systematic review, scientists noted that it's unrealistic to maintain the diet long-term if you restrict carbohydrates to 50 grams per day. A severe reduction in carbohydrates can even negatively impact life expectancy. In 2018, a large population-based study was published in the journal Lancet, covering more than 15,000 people over 25 years. The researchers analyzed the participants' diets and concluded that diets with less than 40% and more than 70% carbohydrates were associated with an increased risk of mortality.
So, too many carbs are bad, but so are too few. Not to mention no carbs at all. So, yes, it's possible to live without carbs, but it's not good.
6. Do athletes need more carbohydrates than sedentary people?
It all depends on your training. During long races, like marathons, people really need fast-acting carbohydrates. Therefore, athletes often take special gels with them and consume them during the race. Or they pick up bananas and oranges at aid stations.
But if we're talking about everyday life rather than competitions, even athletes are better off maintaining a balance of fast and slow-digesting carbohydrates, favoring the latter. That is, if you train hard, you should base your diet on grains, potatoes, vegetables, and fruits, rather than chocolate bars and ice cream. Simply because these foods have greater nutritional value and, in addition to calories, provide vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
Carbohydrates are also essential for those who engage in strength training. Their diets emphasize protein intake, but carbohydrates are also essential—they help maintain high intensity and aid recovery.
7. Why do some people love carbohydrate-rich foods, while others prefer fats?
This is a little-studied area, so no one knows for sure why this happens. It's likely a combination of genetics and environment.
We have genes that determine our preference for sweet, bitter, and fatty foods. But it's difficult to estimate how much they contribute to the development of our tastes. Environment—our childhood diet and our parents' eating habits—certainly also plays a role.
For example, if a mother loves sweets, she'll buy them in large quantities and eat them with relish. And the child may become accustomed to this diet and, as an adult, also indulge in candy and pastries.
Conversely, if parents deprive a child of sweets as a punishment or only give them on holidays, this can also increase cravings for the forbidden product. So, as an adult, the child will often buy what they were forbidden to eat.
8. Are carbohydrates addictive?
Sweets aren't drugs. They don't cause physical addiction, and there's no withdrawal syndrome when you stop eating them. If someone has a strong craving for sweets, it's likely because they have certain eating habits they learned in childhood.
For example, if sweets were scarce, used as a reward, or purchased only on holidays, a psychological craving for such products can develop. A person will perceive them as a quick way to please themselves and, for example, to console themselves when upset. We've probably all remembered the image of a tearful girl sitting in front of the TV, watching TV series, and finishing a kilogram of ice cream.
But in reality, it's not an addiction in the sense we usually think of it. And completely cutting out sweets will only make things worse. Nowadays, bloggers on social media are actively promoting the idea that sugar is truly evil, and many people are trying to eliminate sweets from their diets entirely.
For example, someone has given up sugar altogether. Everything seems fine, they've even lost a little weight and feel great. Then, for example, they get incredibly stressed at work. They break down, run to the vending machine, and start buying up all the sweet snacks. This breakdown adds guilt, which creates further stress, which they can then overcome with even more sweets.
So, don't demonize sugar. Don't completely eliminate certain food groups—it's important to create a balanced diet. If your diet is rich in protein, vegetables, and whole grains, there simply won't be room for sweets.
If you come home hungry in the evening and open the fridge, and the only food you'll find is glazed curd bars and a pack of cookies, you'll eat them all and consume a huge number of calories. But if you make a salad and cook yourself a side dish like brown rice, buckwheat, or whole-grain pasta, you'll need less curd bars.
Distractions while eating also interfere with control. While talking or watching a TV show, you might eat more sweets because you won't notice when you're full. Therefore, if you want to consume fewer calories, try eating slowly and focusing on the taste and sensations. This way, you're more likely to notice your satiety cues.
If you feel like you have a sugar addiction, try changing your diet.
Add more fruits and vegetables. Many people believe they eat enough plant foods, but this is actually not true. A person should eat at least 400 grams of fruits and vegetables per day, with an emphasis on the latter.
Also, be sure to eat enough protein. If you eat a big steak, you're unlikely to crave sweets afterwards. And even if you do, you'll likely eat less than you would on an empty stomach. If you're not getting enough protein, you'll be making up for it with carbohydrates—most likely fast-acting ones. Because foods containing them are delicious and often require no cooking.
9. Do carbohydrates cause swelling?
Each gram of glycogen—the stored carbohydrate in muscles and liver—binds 3–4 grams of water. Therefore, if you severely restrict carbohydrates, you can dramatically lose 1–2 kg. Of course, you won't lose fat, but rather the water bound to glycogen, which will be excreted in your urine. And as soon as you stop dieting, you'll gain all the lost weight back.
Excessive carbohydrate and salt consumption can lead to slight water retention. But this isn't true edema. For example, many of my patients complain of a “swollen belly.” In reality, this is simply bloating. And it's a good thing that this is the case. Because true edema occurs with serious conditions: liver cirrhosis, heart or kidney failure, hypoalbuminemia, and venous and lymphatic system disorders.
What we see after salty snacks or a nightcap is the bare minimum, easily manageable if we develop a healthy diet. Try the Mediterranean diet, or if you can't eat fresh fruits and vegetables year-round, the Scandinavian diet. It emphasizes seasonal produce, berries, root vegetables, and whole grains, and recommends limiting sugary snacks and drinks, as well as very salty foods.
Less salt, simple carbohydrates and alcohol at night – and there will be no problems in the morning.
10. Do fast carbohydrates really harm the skin and make us age faster?
Here we're talking again about those fast carbohydrates we all love so much. Scientists suspect that sugar can actually reduce skin elasticity, but there's no reliable evidence yet that this is the case.
Glucose and fructose bind the amino acids that make up collagen and elastin, the main proteins in our skin, forming advanced glycation end products (AGEs). This causes collagen fibers to clump together and fail to regenerate quickly, which negatively impacts skin firmness and elasticity.
Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) can accumulate in the skin over time, especially under the influence of UV radiation. However, studies on this process are very limited, and most were conducted on mice or test-tube cells. There is not a single high-quality review that confirms a link between dietary sugar intake and skin aging.
Limiting added sugar is definitely worth it; it will benefit your overall health. But declaring it the main cause of wrinkles is definitely not appropriate. There are many other factors that reliably affect skin condition, such as smoking, lack of sleep, and UV radiation.
Source: lifehacker.ru