Alright guys, welcome to another video. My name is Leo Venus. I am a medical doctor and a bioengineer. And on this channel we talk about health nutrition life. So I add pretty much anything that we are interested in. If you are new to this channel, consider clicking the subscribe button and the notification bell next to it. To be notified every time I make a new video for you. With that being said, let's get on to today's video topic, which is going to be Will Carbs Make You Fat. There are extremely few things in society today that are as misunderstood as carbs. So I will not be making any assumptions about prior knowledge before coming to watch this video. The first thing we must ask ourselves when we are talking about carbohydrates and we are trying to understand carbs in detail is what exactly do you mean when you say carb or a carbide or do you mean fruits and start your vegetables or maybe you mean a twinky or a candy bar. Or perhaps even cakes and pies or maybe when you say I am going to have carbs you mean French fries. So here is the first issue when talking about a food as a carb or indeed as a protein or a fat. In reality there are so many different types of carbohydrates, so many different types of proteins and fats. And most foods are actually a mixture of all of these things. So calling a single food by a macronutrient is an extreme simplification and it is also very inaccurate. Okay so now that that is out of the way, let's talk a little bit about the statement that carbs will make you fat or sugar or makes you fat. I've heard this so many times from doctors, from medical students, even from nutritionists. So is there any truth to this statement? Do carbs really make you fat? First things first, fundamentally by definition, sugar or carbohydrates cannot make you fat because these two are different types of molecules. Chemically they are different. The only thing that can make you fat is actually fat. Now that being said there is a process in the human body that can convert sugars into fat. This is called denoval lipogenesis but even this process is usually side around 30% efficiency. Even if you were to try to convert most of the carbohydrates you are eating into fat, it would be a small portion of it. But the notion that carbohydrates can make you fat is from a chemical perspective completely around. Now combine this lack of basic understanding of what carbohydrates and fats are with the extreme oversimplification and mislabeling and variations between different people's understanding of what carbs and fats are in terms of foods. And you can easily understand how crazy the public's perspective around this topic can be. Furthermore another issue I have with this whole fear of carbohydrates and the carbohydrates is actually the preferred source of energy for the human body. It's our preferred fuel. So every single cell in the body uses glucose, a simple sugar for energy. And sure there are different metabolic pathways that can convert proteins and fats back into sugar so that we can use them. This is called gluconeogenesis but once again the energy conversion ratio, the efficiency of these metabolic pathways are far less than the innate mechanism. To use glucose and carbohydrates as it is, storing it as glycogen and then breaking it back down into glucose using it as fuel for our muscles, for our brains, for our organs etc. So this whole notion that carbohydrates are dangerous and that our bodies should not have sugar, should not have carbohydrates is almost the same as saying that we should not be putting gasoline in our cars. Maybe we should just put Coca-Cola in them instead. Now if you are skeptical to this information, that is a good thing. I always encourage people to be skeptical to any experts opinion and that includes my own. So let's take a look at what the science has to say. Let's just focus on the high quality evidence such as reviews, randomized controlled trials and high power prospective court studies. So the thing that low carbohydrate diets are most famous for our rapid weight loss and most of the studies looking at low carbohydrate diets are actually around this. This review found that though they can be affected for weight loss, claims of our increased energy expenditure and preferential loss of body fat are unsubstantiated. Furthermore insulin sensitivity and glucose stimulates insulin secretion may be impaired. Now this study here was actually a crossover interventional trial putting people four weeks on their baseline diet and then another four weeks in a ketogenic diet that had the same amount of calories as their baseline diet. Now what did this trial find? Consisted with what we were talking about before, it found that both total and LDL cholesterol were increased as well as C-reactive protein and a macrophainflamation after the ketogenic diet. And here we have another review on low carbohydrate diets that does highlight some of the issues around low carbohydrate diets. Number one, any diet type resulting in reduced energy intake will result in weight loss and related favorable metabolic and functional changes. Number two, short-term low carbohydrate high fat studies show both favorable and less desirable effects. Number three, sustained adherence to a ketogenic where a low carbohydrate high fat diet appears to be difficult. Number four, there is a lack of data supporting long-term efficacy, safety and health benefits of low carbohydrate diet. And number five, there are actually lifestyle interventions for people who are at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes while maintaining a relatively high or carbohydrate-rich diet, which does actually result in long-term prevention of progression to type 2 diabetes and is generally seen as safe. Now if you're still not convinced, let's look at one of the most reputable journals of the Lancet, which published this really big prospective court study. Finding, quote, there was a U-shaped association between the percentage of energy consumed from carbohydrate and mortality. A percentage of 50 to 55 percent of energy from carbohydrate was associated with the lowest risk of mortality. And then when you look at both extremes, both low carbohydrate consumption and very high carbohydrate consumption, compared greater mortality risk than did moderate intake. However, there is important caveat here as they say it results varied by the source of macronutrient. Mortality increased when carbohydrates were exchanged for animal-derived fat or protein and mortality decreased when the substitutions were planned based. Another study published in the Lancet, this was a combination of systematic reviews and meta-analyses looking at the relationship between carbohydrate quality and health. With around 135 million person years of data, this data was pulled from 185 prospective court studies and 58 clinical trials. In terms of evidence, this is really, really high quality evidence that we're talking about here. They found a 15 to 30 percent decrease in all-cause mortality and cardiovascular-related mortality and incidence of coronary heart disease, stroke incidence and mortality, type 2 diabetes, and colorectal cancer when comparing the highest dietary fiber consumers with the lowest consumers in the clinical trials. The clinical trials also show significant lower body weights, historic blood pressure and total cholesterol when comparing higher with lower intakes of dietary fiber. And remember, most people don't eat that much fiber, so the best results here were seen when the daily intake of fiber was around 25 to 29 grams. But as they say here, those response curves suggested that higher intakes of dietary fiber could confer even greater benefit to protect against cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and colorectal and breast cancer. And this, by the way, is no surprise. This is completely consistent with the majority of the high quality evidence that we have today, as well as the evidence that has been around for a long time. This is nothing new. There are probably hundreds of other studies like these out there. However, obviously, this video would be extremely long and probably extremely boring if we were to go over all of those in detail. So the main thing I want everyone to take from this video is that the exact percentage of the macros is not what's important when it comes to nutrition. What's important is the source of those macronutrients, as well as the entire package of all the micro components, all the micronutrients that come along with them. So what can you do? Number one, always read the ingredient list instead of reading the nutritional label. Number two, always pick unrefined carbohydrates over refined carbohydrates. Number three, center your diet around whole plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes, as has been shown by the scientific literature to promote long term human health and, number four, make water your drink of choice. Now the last thing I would like to mention about this whole carbs-making fat argument and this whole fear around carbohydrates is that I don't really want you to forget about this. Why let something like this go to waste when there's actually a very good use for this tool? So the next time that you hear anyone talking about this, I want you to use this as an easy way to separate the real experts from the fake ones. The next time you hear someone saying carbs are making us fat or that sugar makes fat or even talking about foods in general as carbs, then you can check off that mark in your head and quite confidently make the judgment that that person, whoever he or she is, does not know what they are talking about when it comes to nutrition. So that being said, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Let me know what you think in the comment section down below. Leave a thumbs up if you enjoyed it and, like always, stay science-based and go plant-based.