Transcription
Millions of people are giving up carbohydrates, following Keto, Low Carb, and Carnivore influencers when they want to lose belly fat, and millions of other people swear by Low Fat and gulp down one protein shake after another. Both camps are mortal enemies, and both camps have just been caught completely off guard by a single study, because the answer to the question of what really helps is neither Low Carb nor Low Fat. And this is not my opinion; it is written in black and white in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2026 edition, fresh off the press, and the data behind it is incredibly good. Let's take a look at what's happening in the world of nutrition right now. Keto, Carnivore, Vegan, Low Fat – every diet has its own guru, its own people, its own podcast, and each serves its own target audience. And here, one really gets the impression that whoever shouts the loudest and builds the biggest mystery around themselves is right. But very, very often, these are people who may have studied something, just not medicine, or are dropouts from studies; meaning, they have never seen a single patient with a heart attack. How do I get a patient out of insulin resistance? How do I manage a diabetic? What happens when high blood pressure, diabetes, and severe obesity come together? And then they simply post before-and-after photos of young, healthy 25 or 30-year-olds who have lost 15 or 20 kilos, and then they turn that into their dietary philosophy. But the actual problem remains: one wonders which approach I should follow if I am overweight. And both approaches, Low Carb and Low Fat, often work, but from practice, I can also tell you that they fail very, very often. I see people daily who are doing one and the other method, and in such a way that they are even actively harming themselves. I will give you examples shortly, and this study has now confirmed the suspicion in this regard. It's about a substance that is produced in your gut, and you have certainly never heard of it before. Most diets bypass the biology of the gut, so anyone who only counts calories but doesn't pay attention to gut flora or further ruins it will never lose belly fat in the long run. If you are looking for a step-by-step guide on how to restore your metabolism through your gut, you will find the link to my new book, "Der Darm-Doc" (The Gut Doctor), in the description. Until the release of this book, I am giving away gut restoration cures and online gut courses worth 10,000 Euros monthly for people who pre-order the book. But now let's look at what the study says. A huge study, 30 years of observation time, nearly 200,000 people were followed for decades, resulting in 5.2 million person-years of data. And as hard endpoints, they didn't evaluate any questionnaires about well-being, or any before-and-after pictures, or how many kilos you lost, but rather over 20,000 documented heart attacks, meaning real hospital records were evaluated, deaths. And this is not an influencer study with 12 participants over 8 weeks, and then posting pictures, but truly good science. And now comes the absolutely crucial difference to all previous studies: for the first time, they measured not only how much fat or how many carbohydrates someone ate, but how high-quality these foods were. This sounds super trivial, but it isn't, because this is precisely the mistake I notice in practice. Best example: if you are a meat-eater, what an animal is fed de facto affects the quality of the meat, oh great wonder, no surprise, but still measurable, because, for example, pasture-fed animals with a lot of grass in their diet have fewer inflammation-promoting substances in their meat. And this is exactly where research in recent decades has repeatedly failed: they simply compared Low Carb with Low Fat, but never asked if it was a good Low Carb or a bad Low Carb with high-quality or cheap foods or simple foods. And now comes the part that both camps don't really want to hear. Let's first talk about Low Carb, the raw numbers: those who do Low Carb and do it badly, meaning a lot of processed meat, a lot of animal fats from factory farming, few fiber, you often hear "I eat Carnivore, but fried ham is my addiction, I can't get away from it," have a 14% higher risk of heart attack compared to the control group. And conversely, those who do Low Carb and do it well, meaning they consume plant-based proteins, high-quality fats, minimal processing, a lot of fresh and home-cooked food, have a 15% lower risk of heart attack. That's a difference of almost 30 percentage points, and the only difference is the quality of what's on the plate. And let's talk about Low Fat: with Low Fat, it's the exact same picture in this study: poor quality, 12% higher risk of heart attack; good quality, 13% lower. Therefore, the diet category is almost irrelevant; the quality of the food decides everything. And now I'll tell you why this doesn't surprise me either: salmon with avocado or a burger patty with cheese are both Low Carb, but they are not the same. And when I sit with my esteemed US colleagues, who have YouTube channels up to 10 times larger than mine, at breakfast in a hotel, and they come back with a monster omelet, dripping with cheese, 4-5 eggs, fried bacon next to it, and a quarter of a tomato, because tomato is a nightshade, it contains antinutrients, and when I look at their terrible skin condition, I can put two and two together. And that's exactly what you should apply to your diet. I'll tell you how to do that shortly. What happens on the skin also happens internally, namely inflammation, and this is precisely what this study with over 20,000 heart attacks proves. And no one can convince me that the majority of people who eat Carnivore or Keto can afford high-quality foods; it's a fraction who can truly afford and want to afford high-quality food. The majority will resort to meat from factory farming or simply to cheaper dairy products. If you know someone who is currently considering whether to go Low Carb or Low Fat, please forward this video to them and subscribe to the channel; it could really make a difference for that person. If you like the videos, I would be very happy about a subscription. But let's move on to the part that truly fascinates me, because the Harvard researchers not only evaluated dietary questionnaires and hard data, but they also analyzed blood samples. This is called metabolomics, meaning they look directly into the blood and measure which metabolic end products are circulating there. And the result was clear: those who eat well, regardless of whether it's healthy Low Carb or healthy Low Fat, have measurably more 3-indolepropionic acid in their blood. This is a metabolic product that arises directly from fiber or whole grains, and incidentally, it is also an important marker for healthy gut flora. What does this 3-indolepropionic acid do? This substance acts like a natural protective shield that can directly slow down inflammation in the blood vessels. And as a strong antioxidant, this substance captures harmful substances before they can attack and damage the sensitive heart muscle cells. So, a high level of 3-indolepropionic acid also ensures a more stable sugar metabolism, which can then protect the heart in the long term from the consequences of calcification and overload. Conversely, those who eat poorly, whether it's bad Low Carb or Low Fat, had elevated levels of C7-carnitine in their blood, and this substance comes almost exclusively from red meat or processed meat and is somewhat less favorable for us. So let's look at carnitines again. Carnitines are key molecules of fat metabolism in the heart, and L-carnitine, you might know it, please don't confuse it with it. L-carnitine is an important helper that converts fatty acids into energy for the heart and actively protects cells from damage. However, if we find altered forms of these carnitines in the blood, such as this C7-carnitine or C7-acylcarnitine, as it's called, it indicates a metabolic bottleneck, which in turn indicates an increased risk of heart attack. We physicians use these values to detect an impending heart attack. Importantly, conversely, administering pure L-carnitine after a heart attack can help reduce mortality. So, this is a group of substances where it simply depends on which substance from this group we find in the blood. And we know that meat-eaters, especially of sausages and red meat, produce moderately more of this acylcarnitine; we find this more frequently in their blood. This means the biochemistry doesn't lie here. Inflammation markers, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol – all of this reacts not only to macronutrients; it reacts to food quality. This means those who eat well had lower triglycerides, had higher HDL, a lower inflammation value, the CRP value, which is also the driver for silent inflammation. Those who eat poor-quality food are essentially fueling their little inflammation fire. Incidentally, this will also be one of the topics in my next podcast. If the information in these videos goes too fast for you and you want a deeper understanding of the processes, then check out YouTube or listen to the podcast on all audio platforms. Simply search for Dr. Seltz Podcast; we've also linked it. And now let's get to the point that annoys me the most in practice, because what the study defines as unhealthy Low Carb or unhealthy Low Fat is pretty much exactly what the food industry is trying to sell you right now. Some low-carb cheese puffs from the gym, fat-free fruit yogurt with 15 grams of sugar in it, protein bars made from whey protein, palm oil, and five different sweeteners, leading products that have little fat but refined carbohydrates and additives in large quantities. And this is exactly the opposite of what this study actually identified as protective. And the only ones who benefit from this are the food industry, more precisely, this confusion between Low Carb and Low Fat, because they can offer a shelf full of products for both camps that are essentially useless. And here's another detail from the study that I find truly remarkable: these protective effects were more pronounced in younger people who were not overweight and had normal blood pressure compared to people who already had pre-existing conditions. In plain terms, the earlier you start eating right and eating healthy, the more it protects you. Those who wait until their first blood pressure reading is off or their blood fats get out of control have simply lost valuable time. Let's look at the dinner plate: what does this mean specifically for you? If you want to do Low Carb, go ahead, but then with salmon, avocado, legumes, with nuts, or olive oil, lots of vegetables, eggs, natural yogurt, things like that, cottage cheese, tofu, but not with fried bacon and ham from the pan or ordering burger patties at a restaurant without a bun, and not with any salami snacks. If you prefer Low Fat, go ahead, but then with legumes, with fruit, with vegetables, with plant-based proteins, with some whole grains, lentils, chickpeas, oatmeal, potatoes, rice, quinoa, berries, things like that, but not with that stupid fat-free yogurt full of fruit sugar, and not with chocolate-covered rice cakes. If you want to save yourself all this trouble and find it too complicated, then simply eat Mediterranean. And Mediterranean diet is not the food you get at an Italian restaurant, and certainly not what you eat on vacation in Italy, but it is the term for a distinct dietary pattern. So there's olive oil instead of lard, and fish instead of sausage, and there are many legumes, also some whole grains, lots of nuts, herbs, vegetables, and so on. And with it, you truly enjoy your food, and then it doesn't feel like a diet. The Mediterranean diet remains the absolute top diet, where people have the longest life expectancy. You can find the link in the description if you'd like to look at something like that with recipes and dietary suggestions. That's it, thanks to the channel members; without you, none of this would be possible. Feel free to forward this video if you feel someone in your circle needs it, someone who might be going down the wrong path and stuffing themselves with cheap food just to stick to a certain diet. We'll see you next time, thanks for watching, bye for now.