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by gabemart 4626 days ago
This article misrepresents the underlying research and seems to invent some facts from whole cloth.

> Sweden has become the first Western nation to develop national dietary guidelines that reject the popular low-fat diet dogma in favor of low-carb high-fat nutrition advice.

Where is the evidence that Sweden has developed "national dietary guidelines"? All the sources link back to the paper [1][2] entitled "Dietary Treatment for Obesity". Clearly, dietary treatment for obesity is not the same as national dietary guidelines, and the conclusions of a paper are not the same as government policy.

Further, the paper found low-carb diets more effective for weight loss only in the first six months. Long term, it found no difference in the effectiveness of low-fat vs. low carb. To quote from google translate:

> In the long run there are no differences in efficacy between weight loss tips on strict and moderate carbohydrate diet, low-fat diets, högproteinkost, Mediterranean diet, diet focuses on low-glycemic load diet or a high proportion of monounsaturated fats.

Further, on the "diet doctor" website, under the section "Warnings Against LCHF Dismissed" [3], it quotes the study criticizing some studies that concluded low-carb diets are unhealthy for not adequately distinguishing between different classes of low-carb diets, specifically those high in fast-food and those not. This may be a valid criticism, but is not the same as endorsing the long-term health of a low-carb diet. The "diet doctor" concludes "We simply don’t know" about the long-term effects of various macronutrient compositions on health, which is fair, but this is a long way short of the national government of Sweden endorsing high-fat low-carb diets as unequivocally healthier than high-carb low-fat diets.

It may appear that I'm against low-carb diets; I'm not. I just think this is a very poor and misleading article.

[1] [pdf warning] http://www.sbu.se/upload/Publikationer/Content0/1/Mat_vid_fe...

[2] [google translation of conclusions] http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&prev...

[3] http://www.dietdoctor.com/swedish-expert-committee-low-carb-...

3 comments

Swede here. Here is a google translate from the "government agency of food" website, stating their stance on low-carb high-fat. http://translate.google.se/translate?hl=sv&sl=sv&tl=en&u=htt...

They also provide national dietary guidelines, found on the site.

We do know that since the current dietary guidelines with a lot of focus on low fat got introduced there has been an explosion of obesity, diabetes and other food related health issues. Correlation is not causation ...

I hope that http://nusi.org/ is as honest and openminded as they claim to be when it comes to researching what kind of food is the most healthy to eat.

It surprises me that we don't have more solid knowledge in these questions.

As my other comment said, it's very hard to build any diet that works for everyone. But that doesn't stop people from trying.