Hello and welcome to this week's nutrition diva podcast. I'm your host

Monica Reinagle. Thanks for tuning in. A big new study that was published last month in the Lancet suggests

that cutting back on carbs and eating more fat could extend your life. Now at first glance,

this new finding might seem to validate the low-carb diet as the

healthiest way to eat, but as usual there's a lot more to this study than the headlines

imply and that's what we're talking about this week.

First, let me just give you some background on how the study was conducted.

Researchers collected dietary and health records from citizens of 18 different countries all around the world

over a 10-year period and they ended up with data on over 135,000 people.

So this was a big study. And then they divided the subjects into groups based on how much

carbohydrate, protein, and fat they typically ate as a percentage of their total calorie intake.

And then they looked at how many people in each category

developed heart disease or had a heart attack

or died during the study period. What they found and what you probably heard in the news

was that the people with the highest carbohydrate intake also had the highest risk of mortality

and heart disease and that those who ate the most fat had the lowest mortality

rates. But before you dig out your copy of the Atkins or the South Beach or the Duquesne

Diet, I'd like to highlight a few details that you might not have gotten

from the news coverage of this study.

The study found that allocating more than 60% of your calories to carbohydrates

increases your risk of death and disease.

But, as I'm sure you know, not all carbs are the same.

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