Women’s carb boost
IT’S the news every woman wants to hear – eating carbs and saturated fat can help you avoid heart disease and diabetes.
A new Australian study has turned years of dietary advice on its head and says women who get between 41 and 44 per cent of their energy from carbs have a lower risk of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and obesity.
They were less likely to get these illnesses than women who consumed less than 37 per cent of their energy from carbs. And, even better, increasing saturated fat intake was not associated with heart disease risk or death in women, the study funded by the Heart Foundation found.
The observational study by researchers at Monash University tracked 9899 women aged over 52 for 15 years in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health.
“There was no significant association between carbohydrate intake and mortality or between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease or mortality,” the study found.
“Both increasing saturated fat and carbohydrate intake were significantly inversely associated with hypertension, diabetes mellitus and obesity.”
It could be because the fibre in good quality wholegrain carbs stops the fat accumulating in your arteries, the authors hypothesised. They also noted a lot of previous heart research had focused on males and it was possible women’s bodies may work differently.
“A low-fat diet has historically been the mainstay of primary prevention guidelines, but the major issue within our dietary guidelines is that many dietary trials have predominantly involved male participants or lacked sex-specific analyses,” said Sarah Zaman, a former Monash University professor who is now an associate professor at the University of Sydney.
Study author Sarah Gribbin said “as an observational study, our findings only show association and not causation”.
“Our research is purely hypothesisgenerating. We are hoping our findings will spark future research into sex-specific dietary research,” she said.
Heart Foundation manager, food and nutrition Eithne Cahill cautioned “not all carbohydrates are created equal”.
“We know that quality carbohydrate foods such as vegetables and whole grains – including whole grain bread, cereals, and pasta – are beneficial for heart health, whereas poor quality carbohydrates such as white bread, biscuits, cakes and pastries can increase risk,” she said.
“That is why the Heart Foundation focuses on healthy eating patterns rather than a single nutrient or food. Include plenty of vegetables, fruit and whole grains, and heart-healthy fat choices such as nuts, seeds, avocados, olives and their oils for cooking and a variety of healthy proteins, especially seafood, beans and lentils, eggs and dairy.”