How Carbohydrates Affect Health and Weight

Here are just a couple blurbs from the Diet Heart News article 25 Reasons the U.S. Dietary Guidelines are wrong about cholesterol & saturated fat that refer to carbohydrates:

• The primary dietary cause of diabetes and heart disease is the excess carbohydrates in our diet, especially sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and the easily-digested carbohydrates found in grain and grain products. Since 1980, Americans are consuming at least 400 additional carbohydrate calories a day – much of it sugar and corn syrup.
• Blood-sugar-raising carbohydrates have a direct and immediate effect on blood sugar and insulin levels and, in the words of science writer Gary Taubes, “on the disruption of the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body.”
• High insulin levels (hyperinsulinism) explain why Americans have fattened. Insulin is the fat storage hormone. When insulin levels are elevated – either chronically or after a meal – we make and store fat and lock it up in adipose tissue. When fat is locked up, it is not available as a fuel to the trillions of cells in the body. Hunger is the result.
• By stimulating insulin levels, carbohydrates make us hungry and fat. High circulating insulin – in response to excess dietary carbohydrates – is the root cause of weight gain, obesity, diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, and coronary heart disease – which leads to congestive heart failure.
• According to the CDC in Atlanta, 1 in 3 children born today will become diabetics and 80 percent of diabetics die of heart disease. We have both an expanding population and a steadily increasing incidence of diabetes and heart disease. Americans need relief. How bad do things have to get before we revise the U.S. Dietary Guidelines in favor of a higher fat whole foods carbohydrate-restricted diet?