Evidence is mounting that carbohydrates rather than fat are the real cause of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. A carbohydrate-rich diet is not mankind’s natural diet. The process of evolution might result in a population genetically adapted to such a diet, but this would take millions of years, not the mere decades that such foods have been available to us in the quantities in which we consume them today. For the many who remain unadapted, chronic overproduction of the hormone insulin on eating refined carbohydrates such as sugar, white flour and white rice at nearly every meal is the result.

This constantly high circulating level of insulin is what many experts now believe is the real cause of obesity and diabetes. Their research also leads them to believe that heart disease is caused by these high levels of circulating insulin too, and not simply by high fat intake as was formerly assumed. So overconsumption of refined carbohydrates and the resulting high levels of insulin may be the real cause of the link between obesity, diabetes and heart disease, not fat and cholesterol. As up to sixty per cent of the population is thought to respond to carbohydrates in this way, it follows that current healthy eating advice to base the diet on carbohydrates may be metabolically wrong for the majority of the population.

If this carbohydrate theory is correct, and scientific studies are increasingly demonstrating that it is, then it certainly explains why the focus on reducing fat intake of the past few decades has failed to halt the escalation of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. It also offers a way to improve health on a massive scale and save millions in healthcare costs, if we could but see it.

Copyright GoodDietGoodHealth.com 2006

Jackie Bushell is passionate about raising awareness of the role of diet and nutrition in good health and helping those who are affected by obesity. Via her website at GoodDietGoodHealth.com , she provides information, support, cookbooks, how-to guides and a newsletter for those wishing to understand more about how to improve their health and achieve a healthy weight in a natural way. Amongst the resources she has developed are a low carb/low GI diet cookbook and a book called 'Why Can't I Lose Weight' for those who experience common problems such as not losing weight on their diet or becoming stuck on a 'diet plateau'.