Research

Macro partitioning

Adopting a low-carbohydrate diet (higher fat/protein, lower carbs) does not increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in Japanese adults, and may significantly reduce it in men when the fat source is vegetable-based.

If you are Japanese or have similar metabolic traits (high visceral fat, lower insulin secretion capacity), switching to a diet with lower carbohydrates and higher fats/proteins is not likely to increase your risk of type 2 diabetes. In fact, if your fats come from vegetable sources (like nuts, seeds, oils), it may significantly lower your risk, especially in men. This contradicts generalizations from Western studies that often involve higher red meat consumption.

ModerateRefutesMEDIUM confidence
Our results suggest that diets lower in carbohydrates and higher in fat and protein are unlikely to higher the T2D risk among Japanese individuals.
Akinori Yaegashi et al. · Journal of Nutritional Science · 2023

Why this rating

Prospective cohort study with large sample size (n=19,084) and multivariable adjustment, but limited by self-reported data and short follow-up (5 years).

Source

Association between low-carbohydrate diet score and incidence of type 2 diabetes among Japanese adults: the JACC Study

Akinori Yaegashi et al. · Journal of Nutritional Science · 2023

DOI 10.1017/jns.2022.122

cohort · n=19084Cited 10×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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