Carb Confusion No wonder everyone is confused about carbs. Some say they're the enemy to weight loss and good health. Others say they should be the foundation of our entire diet. Then there's about a million variations in between, muddying the picture even more.
In the past few weeks, the headlines have added to the carb confusion. First, an Italian study revealed a connection between carbohydrates and kidney cancer. Then, Swedish researchers announced a link between carbohydrates and pancreatic cancer. And now Harvard researchers have announced that data from the landmark Nurses' Health Study suggest that carb-lovers are at higher risk for heart disease.
Certainly, there are lessons to be learned from each of these studies. But the headlines you saw painting all carbohydrates with the same broad brush didn't help anyone.
The coverage of the Nurses' Health Study was the worst - MSNBC's "Carbs may be worse for heart than fatty foods" header was typical. Which carbs? And which fats? Unfortunately, most people don't know enough to ask those questions.
Here's what the study really found: women who got most of their calories from refined sugars and highly processed carbohydrate sources twice as likely to have heart disease as women whose diets were based on plant proteins and fats.
That's not news. We know refined sugars and processed carbohydrates are not good for us. And we know that plant proteins and fats, like legumes, whole grains, soy, nuts, and seeds, are heart-healthy foods. Plant-based fats are almost exclusively mono- and polyunsaturated fats, the good fats that you need in your diet.
But from the headline, you'd think they'd discovered that it's better to eat a big fatty pork chop that a slice of whole grain bread.
The Italian study is equally unsurprising. Basically, it found that people that ate the most bread were nearly twice as likely to have renal cell carcinoma (RCC), the most common form of kidney cancer.
The authors theorize that the correlation is due to bread's high glycemic index, an assessment of how quickly glucose from a food hits the blood stream. That makes sense, since blood glucose triggers the secretion of insulin, which can also release insulin-like growth factors that can feed cancer.
But I doubt that all bread would cause this cascade. The coverage I saw didn't specify what type of bread the subjects ate - another example of irresponsible health journalism. Based on the results, I'd guess it was bread made from refined white flour. Again, not a shocker - we know white bread is a nutritional wasteland. True whole grain breads are so dense and filling, it's hard to eat too much. And whole grain breads also have a much lower glycemic index than white breads, so it's doubtful it would cause problems.
The Swedish study was the only one that surprised me. I wasn't shocked by its core finding - basically, that sodas and other sugary foods and beverages are dangerous. But I was taken aback by the staggering level of risk linking these foods and pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease.
The researchers found that people who drank sodas or other syrup based drinks frequently (twice a day or more) were at least 90 percent more likely to develop pancreatic cancer. They also found significant correlations with other sources of sugar: adding sugar to a beverage like coffee five times a day made pancreatic cancer 70 percent more likely, and regular consumption of sugary desserts doubled the risk.
Those are some big numbers. But still, the risk of developing pancreatic cancer is relatively low. I'd be more concerned with the other health problems sodas and sugar can cause, like bone loss, migraines, obesity and insulin resistance. There's plenty of reasons to stop drinking soda and to cut back on sugar - and no good reasons to start.
So don't get drawn into the no-carb, lo-carb, high-carb confusion. If you include both high quality lean proteins and complex carbohydrates in your meals (and control your portion sizes) you'll stay healthy and thin - no matter what the headlines say.
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 There are times when medical news is too urgent to wait until the next issue, so Dr. Alan Inglis keeps in touch with you through House Calls.
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