While it is known that a low-carb, low-fat diet can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and other conditions like diabetes, little is known about the relationship between this kind of diet and COPD.
Researchers at the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine at the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University in China have found that a diet higher in fats was associated with increased odds of COPD, while low-fat diets (LFD) and low-carb diets (LCD) were associated with lower total mortality in patients with COPD.
According to a study published in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, the researchers extracted clinical data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for three different years to evaluate the associations between low-carb diets and low-fat diets and the odds of COPD and mortality.
“We observed that an unhealthy LFD score diet was associated with an increased prevalence of COPD, and a healthy LFD score was inversely associated with the total mortality of people with COPD, indicating the remarkable health benefits of saturated fat reduction and unsaturated fat increase for the development and progression of COPD,” the researchers wrote.
The researchers said data on the association between low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets and COPD is scarce.
“To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to explore the association between different types of LCD and LFD scores with morbidity and mortality in COPD,” they wrote.
