Carbs and health: The amount of carbohydrates to eat for a long life

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• New evidence from a long-term study suggests that
  neither high-carb nor
  low-carb diets are necessarily great for your
  health. 
• Scientists studied more than 15,000 people in the US
  and another 400,000-plus around the world, and found that
  getting about 50-55% of a day’s energy from carbohydrates might
  be ideal. 
• People who ate significantly more or less carbs than
  that were more likely to die, according to the study.

 
For years, dieters have had to deal with a lot of conflicting
advice on how to eat.

First, fat was the bad guy. Then it was considered ideal to avoid
sugar and go low-carb.

Lately, dieters trying the trendy
ketogenic diet have discovered that if they replace carbs
with fat, they can trick their bodies into a natural starvation
mode and lose weight, while still enjoying bacon and slurping
heavy cream. 

But a new,
long-term study published Thursday in The Lancet
suggests there may be a winning formula for the amount of
carbohydrates to eat every day. It relies on some very unsexy,
old advice: everything in moderation. 

Lead researcher Sara Seidelmann, a cardiologist and
nutrition researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in
Boston, told Business Insider that her results suggested a diet
“rich in plant based whole foods such as vegetables, whole
grains, legumes, and nuts is associated with healthy
aging.” 

That usually means about half of the calories you eat in a day
should come from carbohydrates.

A Goldilocks rule for carbs

For the study, Seidelmann looked at the diets of more than 15,400
adults in the US and another 432,000 people in more than 20
countries around the world. She and her team of researchers
analyzed that information in relation to how long the study
participants lived.

They found that people who ate a moderate amount of carbohydrates
— around half of their daily calories — tended to live the
longest.

Conversely, people who derived more than 70% of their energy
from carbs or got less than 40% of their daily calories from
carbohydrates were more likely to die than people who ate
something in between.

It’s a kind of Goldilocks finding: we should eat not too many
carbs, not too few, but just the right amount. 

On one end of the spectrum are people who suffer health
consequences from eating too many carbs, like in some
lower-income countries where people tend to rely on white rice
for sustenance without much else on their plate. 

On the other end are people who consume to few carbs.
Surprisingly, the group at highest risk of death in the US study
were those who didn’t eat carbs, since those people tended to
replace carb-heavy foods with animal fats and proteins:
“beef, pork, lamb, chicken, and cheese,” as Seidelmann put
it.

“C
learly, filling your plate with those things
increased mortality,” she said. 

In fact, the researchers concluded that a 50-year-old who eats
within the 50-55% carbs margin could expect to live for another
33.1 years, while someone the same age who gets just 30% of their
calories from carbs would be expected to live roughly 29.1 more
years. 

The important part is getting as many whole, healthful foods onto
your plate as possible

There is a way to do a low-carb diet and age well: people who ate
small amounts of carbohydrates but more plant-based proteins like
veggies, beans, and nuts were found to be less likely to die and
tended to live to a ripe old age. 

This might be because eating large amounts of animal fat
and protein but few fresh plant-based foods can increase
inflammation in the body.

“Try to make choices that fill your plate with plants,”
Seidelmann said.

She agrees there’s a short-term link between low-carb diets
and weight loss, but cautions that diets like keto and Atkins
might not be great long-term strategies. 

“There’s absolutely nothing more important for our health
than what we eat each and every day,” she
said. “I really would like
individuals to realize the power that they have over their own
health,” she said.