Uploaded May 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
This video provides an overview of what current studies say about the changes in metabolic rate associated with low-carbohydrate diets, namely that low-carbohydrate diets do not increase it. It then does a deep dive into the problems with the low-carbohydrate diet study conducted principally by David Ludwig at Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School and published in the British Medical Journal, running through Kevin Hall and Juen Guo's preprint at Biorxiv for insights and explaining some major but basic issues in the design of scientific studies. Finally, it gives information on the thyroid changes associated with low-carbohydrate diets.
I had meant to talk about the positives of low-carbohydrate diets at the end, but I was too tired and forgot. Low-carbohydrate diets might decrease appetite by changes in gastrointestinal physiology and/or via appetite suppressive effects of ketones. We can cover this and more in another video.
I want to be clear that I don't necessarily reject the findings of Dr. Ludwig's study. Rather, I think it needs to be confirmed by other studies. Without that confirmation, given the conflicting findings of other studies and the unusualness of this study, I think the most reasonable position is that the default hypothesis should continue to be that low-carbohydrate diets do not provide a metabolic advantage.
This video provides an overview of what current studies say about the changes in metabolic rate associated with low-carbohydrate diets, namely that low-carbohydrate diets do not increase it. It then does a deep dive into the problems with the low-carbohydrate diet study conducted principally by David Ludwig at Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School and published in the British Medical Journal, running through Kevin Hall and Juen Guo's preprint at Biorxiv for insights and explaining some major but basic issues in the design of scientific studies. Finally, it gives information on the thyroid changes associated with low-carbohydrate diets.
I had meant to talk about the positives of low-carbohydrate diets at the end, but I was too tired and forgot. Low-carbohydrate diets might decrease appetite by changes in gastrointestinal physiology and/or via appetite suppressive effects of ketones. We can cover this and more in another video.
I want to be clear that I don't necessarily reject the findings of Dr. Ludwig's study. Rather, I think it needs to be confirmed by other studies. Without that confirmation, given the conflicting findings of other studies and the unusualness of this study, I think the most reasonable position is that the default hypothesis should continue to be that low-carbohydrate diets do not provide a metabolic advantage.
