Research

Energy balance

Long-term adherence to low-carbohydrate diets, regardless of carbohydrate quality, is associated with a greater annual increase in waist circumference compared to higher-carbohydrate diets.

Be aware that long-term low-carbohydrate diets may be associated with increased waist circumference, even if other cardiometabolic markers improve. Monitor your waist circumference and consider adjusting your diet if you notice an increase.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Waist circumference annual gains (cm/y) increased across quintiles (mean for Quintile 1, Quintile 5; P-trend) for HQ-LCDS (0.58, 0.69; 0.004), and LQ-LCDS (0.56, 0.74; <0.001).
Ghaida F Aloraini et al. · Nutrition Journal · 2025

Why this rating

Longitudinal prospective cohort study with a large sample size and long follow-up, though observational design limits causal inference.

Source

Impact of carbohydrate quality on the association between low-carbohydrate diet scores and longitudinal changes of cardiometabolic risk factors

Ghaida F Aloraini et al. · Nutrition Journal · 2025

DOI 10.1186/s12937-025-01194-6

cohort · n=3294
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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