Low‐carbohydrate diet score is associated with improved blood pressure and cardio‐metabolic risk factors among obese adults

Abstract

Obesity is associated with numerous co-morbidities and diet, is one of the modifiable risk factors for prevention against these obesity-related metabolic disorders.In the current study, we aimed to evaluate the association between adherence to low carbohydrate diet (LCD) score and serum lipids, glycemic markers, blood pressure, and anthropometric parameters among obese individuals. The current cross-sectional study is a combination of two projects with total participants of 359 obese individuals (body mass index [BMI] ≥ 30 kg/m 2 ) aged 20-50 years were included. Dietary intake was assessed by a validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) of 132 food items. Low carbohydrate diet score was estimated by deciles of dietary intakes. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) was defined based on the guidelines of the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP-ATP III). Enzymatic methods were used to assess serum lipids, glucose, and insulin concentrations. Blood pressure was measured by sphygmomanometer and body composition with bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). Higher adherence to LCD score was associated with significantly lower DBP and triglyceride (TG) concentrations and increased high density lipoprotein (HDL)-C levels after adjustment for the confounders (p < 0.05). A nonsignificant reduction in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and total cholesterol (TC) values were also observed. Also, high adherence to LCD score was associated with reduced prevalence of metabolic syndrome (p < 0.05). Higher BMI, fat mass, and lower fat-free mass were also accompanied with higher adherence to LCD score. According to our study, low carbohydrate diet score was associated with more favorable cardio-metabolic risk factors independent of some confounders like age, BMI, sex, and physical activity level. Further studies in different communities will help for generalization of our findings. K E Y W O R D S cardio-metabolic risk factors, low carbohydrate diet, metabolic syndrome, obesity How to cite this article: Pour Abbasi, M. S., Shojaei, N., & Farhangi, M. A. (2022). Lowcarbohydrate diet score is associated with improved blood pressure and cardio-metabolic risk factors among obese adults. Physiological Reports,

High fat diet is protective against kidney injury in hypertensive-diabetic mice, but leads to liver injury

“…HFD alone has been shown to promote lipotoxicity in the kidney of mice [ 40 ], whereas ketogenic diet partially reverts diabetic nephropathy in db/db mice [ 41 ]. Taking in consideration the trend to decrease SBP observed in our study, we hypothesize that HFD could lead to cardiovascular protection [ 35 ], resulting in kidney protection. Additionally, the metabolic changes induced by HFD could also contribute to kidney protection.…”

“…These contradict some studies in the literature, demonstrating renal damage progression in HFD-fed mouse models [ 32 – 34 ]. However, a recent study performed by Pour Abassi et al 2022 showed that low-carbohydrate high fat diet can offer cardiovascular protection in obese adults [ 35 ], indicating that further studies are necessary to understand the mechanisms behind high fat diet regimen in CVDs.…”

The BMI, fat percentage and total cholesterol of athletes: what is their status?

“…There is a significant correlation between BMI the body fat. The higher the BMI, the higher the fat mass (Pour Abbasi, Shojaei, & Farhangi, 2022). This condition exacerbates health, for creating adjacent diseases, such as cardiovascular, type II diabetes and many others.…”

“…For example, aerobic exercise reduces blood vessel stiffness in the elderly (Wang et al, 2021). The effort to overcome BMI and high cholesterol due to obesity is to do a low-carbohydrate diet (Pour Abbasi et al, 2022) as well as do regular exercise. Exercise can protect adults from having metabolic syndrome (Menezes et al, 2022).…”