Saturday, January 25, 2014

What other than weight loss has eating low carb done for people?

Here is a post from a forum I sometimes haunt. There is a surprising list of health and life improvements that people report.

A big surprise for me was that I stopped snoring within a few weeks of going low carb. PaleoPathologistMate was incredibly delighted with this and when the Mate is happy (and ahem rested,) so am I.  My reflux disease stopped being a problem fairly quickly as well. (It returns if I eat too many carbs or have wine with dinner. Kind of a bummer but for me the benefits of no GERD are huge.) I also got my first case of sinusitis in a long time this year after a week in smoke, dust, wind, heat, humidity in Managua, Nicaragua; first real sickness in a good while, seems like my sinuses are a lot healthier. And last spring was supposed to be a heavy pollen load, and my usual hay fever actually seemed better controlled.

I know of people who claim that depression has decreased, digestive problems improved, skin healthier, increased perceived energy level, and many other things. One young woman told me she is completely off antidepressants and no longer has terrible irritable bowel symptoms.

Don't know what to do with all this as yet; as a doc I'm FULLY aware of the power of the placebo effect and suggestion. I also know the word "anecdotal."

On the other hand...if it IS all anecdotal and placebo...and I feel better...who really cares? These are good hypotheses for someone to test (if they can overcome their biases, and the funding organizations' biases--see previous post.)

3 comments:

  1. I wonder if your reduced snoring was related to weight loss. But you probably didn't lose more than 8-10 pounds in two weeks anyway.

    Very-low-carb diets have been studied as an approach to reflux in obese folks. N=8, so very small study, but documented improvement. Reference:http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10620-005-9027-7?LI=true

    Keep the posts coming!

    -Steve

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  2. I didn't have that much to lose, just 15-20 lbs. It came off steadily. But I remember noticing that I had sort of a breakpoint at 160 for GERD years ago; did not notice when it happened this time. Thanks for the comment. Are you the radiologist Steve Parker from Denver years ago?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I didn't have that much to lose, just 15-20 lbs. It came off steadily. But I remember noticing that I had sort of a breakpoint at 160 for GERD years ago; did not notice when it happened this time. Thanks for the comment. Are you the radiologist Steve Parker from Denver years ago?

    ReplyDelete