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Is Low Carb Bad For The Good Gut Bugs

In what will be no surprise to many nutritionists, a study has found that low carb diets may be bad for our gastrointestinal health. Low carb diets include the once popular Atkins diet, which people primarily tried out to lose weight. The good news for dieters, however, is that those people on a medium carb diet lost similar amounts of weight to those on the low carb - but without the gut problems.

The study was conducted by scientists at Aberdeen's Rowett Research Institute, and published in the journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. It followed 19 obese, but otherwise healthy, men for 4 weeks. It was a randomized trial in which the men were given a different diet to follow - some were on a low carb diet, with 4% carbohydrates (similar to the Atkins diet), others were given a medium carb diet with 35% carbohydrates (similar in levels to the zone diet), and the remainder were given a high carb diet.

The study found that the levels of beneficial gut bacteria were lower in the medium and low carb groups, and especially so for the low carb dieters. The strain known as bifidobacteria bacteria, present in many probiotic supplements, was the most affected. The high carb group had levels at 4% of total bacterial population, the medium carb group had 2.1% bifidobacteria bacteria, and the low carb group had only 1.9%.

Gut bacterial population was not the only thing that suffered, however. Short chain fatty acids, normally found in the feces, and beneficial to our health, were also lower. These were significant differences, with those in the low carb group having nearly half the levels that those in the high carb group had, at 56 mM compared to 114 mM. Those in the medium carb group had 74 mM.

References: Nutraingredients
Probiotics - Open Access Biology