A low-carb diet for diabetes: the latest evidence

Almost a century ago the Lancet warned that ‘it is the starchy carbohydrate foods rather than the more quickly and readily metabolised fats which are responsible for much of the alimentary type of obesity’ (Anon, 1926); an 18-country study found that ‘high carbohydrate intake was associated with higher risk of total mortality, whereas total fat and individual types of fat were related to lower total mortality’ (Dehghan et al, 2017); and Wincanton-based GP Dr Campbell Murdoch and colleagues reported that a low-carbohydrate diet in the management of type 2 diabetes ‘can lead to improvements in the condition, reduced medication burden, and (where needed) weight loss’ (Murdoch et al, 2019).

By contrast, the advice of Public Health England (2018) to ‘base meals on potatoes, bread, rice, pasta or other starchy carbohydrates’, appears incongruous, given that Harcombe (2017a; 2017b) and Harcombe et al (2017) have shown that current UK dietary guidelines are not evidence-based.