Slash carbs . . . What happens? 26. March 2010 William Davis (20) Cut the carbohydrates in your diet and what sorts of results can you expect? Carbohydrate reduction results in:Reduced small LDL--This effect is profound. Carbohydrates increase small LDL; reduction of carbohydrates reduce small LDL. People are often confused by this because the effect will not be evident in the crude, calculated (Friedewald) LDL that your doctor provides.Increased HDL--The HDL-increasing effect of carbohydrate reduction may require 1-2 years. In fact, in the first 2 months, HDL will drop, only to be followed by a slow, gradual increase. This is the reason why, in a number of low-carb diet studies, HDL was shown to be reduced.--Had the timeline been longer, HDL would show a significant increase.Decreased triglycerides--Like reduction of small LDL, the effect is substantial. Triglyceride reductions of several hundred milligrams are not at all uncommon. In people with familial hypertriglyceridemia with triglyceride levels in the thousands of milligrams per deciliter, triglyceride levels will plummet with carbohydrate restriction. (Ironically, conventional treatment for familial hypertriglyceridemia is fat restriction, a practice that can reduce triglycerides modestly in these people, but not anywhere near as effectively as carbohydrate restriction.) Triglyceride reduction is crucial, because triglycerides are required by the process to make small LDL--less triglycerides, less small LDL. Decreased inflammation--This will be reflected in the crude surface marker, c-reactive protein--Yes, the test that the drug industry has tried to convince you to take statins drugs to reduce. In my view, it is an absurd notion that you need to take a drug like Crestor to reduce risk associated with increased CRP. If you want to reduce CRP to the floor, eliminate wheat and other junk carbohydrates. (You should also add vitamin D, another potent CRP-reducing strategy.)Reduced blood pressure--Like HDL, blood pressure will respond over an extended period of months to years, not days or weeks. The blood pressure reduction will be proportion to the amount of reduction in your "wheat belly."Reduced blood sugar--Whether you watch fasting blood sugar, postprandial (after-meal) blood sugars, or HbA1c, you will witness dramatic reductions by eliminating or reducing the foods that generate the high blood sugar responses in the first place. Diabetics, in particular, will see the biggest reductions, despite the fact that the American Diabetes Association persists in advising diabetics to eat all the carbohydrates they want. Reductions in postprandial (after-eating) blood sugars, in particular, will reduce the process of LDL glycation, the modification of LDL particles by glucose that makes them more plaque-causing. You may notice that the above list corresponds to the list of common plagues targeted by the pharmaceutical industry: blood pressure, diabetes (diabetes being the growth industry of the 21st century), high cholesterol. In other words, high-carbohydrate, low-fat foods from the food industry create the list of problems; the pharmaceutical industry steps in to treat the consequences.In the Track Your Plaque approach, we focus specifically on elimination of wheat, cornstarch, and sugars, the most offensive among the carbohydrates. The need to avoid other carbohydrates, e.g., barley, oats, quinoa, spelt, etc., depends on individual carbohydrate sensitivty, though I tend to suggest minimal exposure.