Using mice that were fed a specially-created diet that mimicked the typical low-carb human diet, the researchers concluded that excessive fatty protein impairs the body's ability to form new blood vessels in tissues deprived of blood flow, as might occur during a heart attack.
And here's the scariest part of all: Even with increased vascular disease caused by the low-carb diet, the standard markers of cardiovascular risk, such as the blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels, don't change. That masks the real risk since people think they're healthy. "It's very difficult to know in clinical studies how diets affect vascular health," says senior author Dr. Anthony Rosenzweig. "We, therefore, tend to rely on easily measured serum markers [such as cholesterol], which have been surprisingly reassuring in individuals on low-carbohydrate/high-protein diets, who do typically lose weight. But our research suggests that, at least in animals, these diets could be having adverse cardiovascular effects that are not reflected in simple serum markers."
Note this: Dr. Rosenzweig was on a low-carb, high-protein diet prior to this study, but once he saw the study results, he said he changed the way he eats. The study findings were published in the Online Version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
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