Research
Hormonal
Long-term adherence to strict low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets may increase cardiovascular risk factors, including plasma homocysteine levels and potentially insulin resistance, due to elevated circulating free fatty acids.
Be cautious with strict low-carb, high-fat diets over the long term. They may raise homocysteine and potentially insulin resistance. Monitor your blood work and consider balancing fat intake with unsaturated fats or increasing protein to mitigate risks.
ModerateRefutesMEDIUM confidence
However, it may be speculated that insulin sensitivity may be negatively affected in the long term as low-CHO, high-fat diets favour an increase of plasma circulating free fatty acids... Recently an increased plasma homocysteine level (+6.6%) was observed in individuals that follow strictly a low-CHO diet for several months.
Why this rating
Based on speculation and some studies, but long-term data is lacking.
Source
Low‐carbohydrate diets: nutritional and physiological aspects
A. Adam‐Perrot et al. · Obesity Reviews · 2006
DOI 10.1111/j.1467-789x.2006.00222.x
narrative_reviewCited 247×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Low-carbohydrate diets (defined as <30% energy from CHO or <50-100g/day) acutely reduce fasting glucose, insulin, and triglycerides while promoting rapid initial weight loss, primarily through glycogen depletion and increased fat oxidation.Good
- Low-carbohydrate, high-protein, low-fat diets mitigate the negative side effects of standard low-carb diets (such as lean mass loss and calcium excretion) while preserving fat loss benefits.Moderate
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