Age Well with High-Quality Carbs (Say Goodbye to Low-Carb Diets)
Written by TYE Medical on Jun 9th 2025
It may be time to rethink your low-carb diet commitment. According to a new study, if you’re a woman, eating more high quality carbs like whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and beans may help you reach a healthier age 70. This means, you can decrease your chances of developing a chronic disease or even depression before you reach your later years. The best part is that you can do so without a low-carb diet. Here is what you need to know about aging well with high quality carbs.
What the Study Found About High Quality Carbs
Fingings suggest healthy aging is more certain if your diet is rich in high-quality carbohydrates. For purposes of the study, researchers defined healthy again according to the following characteristics:
- Living at least 70 years
- Not developing a major chronic illness
- Maintaining mental acuity (no memory problems)
- Staying physically active (moderate activity)
- Maintaining good mental health (no chronic depression)
But this good health isn’t achieved with low-quality, refined carbohydrates. It’s all about eating the right carbs, better known as unrefined carbs, that exist naturally in certain foods and remain largely unprocessed. Eating more of these carbs (not less) can protect you from memory loss, depression, a host of chronic diseases, and even general physical decline. This means the only carbs you need to put on your no-no list are refined carbs like pastries, processed snacks, and white bread.
For this study, researchers tracked diet and health in 47,000 women, collecting data from their mid-forties until they were in their nineties. By the end of the study, only 8 percent of the women met the healthy-aging criteria.
The specifics of what they found include:
- 6 to 37 percent chance of aging healthy if consumed more fiber and high quality carbs
- 13 percent lower chance of aging healthy if consumed more highly processed carbs
- Lower chance of healthy aging if a higher glycemic index and carb-to-fiber ration
Researchers specifically tracked the following nutrition data via a questionnaire that included:
- Total carbs
- Refined carbs from processed foods
- High-quality (unrefined) carbs (whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes)
- Dietary fiber
This information was used to calculate glycemic index and glycemic load, both of which are critical for understanding the effects of carbohydrates in your body.
Glycemic index is measured on a scale of 0 to 100, indicating to what degree carb-containing foods generally raise blood sugar levels after being consumed. Most often, high glycemic index foods are highly processed foods, while lower glycemic foods are higher in fiber or fat, requiring slower digestion.
Glycemic load gives you a full carb picture, including the total carbs. This allows you to know how quickly as well as how much blood sugar levels will rise after eating.
How Do Healthy Carbs Promote Healthy Aging?
It’s helpful to know what type of carbs to eat for healthier aging, but how do high-quality carbs help? Here are some nutritional components to consider.
Fiber
We need fiber to aid in digestive health. Not only does it feed the “good bacteria” in our gut microbiome, but it also decreases inflammation, which is a key component of healthy aging. Additionally, fiber helps maintain healthy weight by making us feel full without adding to our calorie intake.
Antioxidants
Antioxidants are key players in fighting free radicals and maintaining your body’s defense against aging. These super nutrients are found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans. Like fiber, they also stave off inflammation, protecting you from diabetes, cancer, heart disease, fatty liver disease, and general signs of aging.
Don’t Be Afraid to Eat Carbs
Skipping out on carbs is like avoiding protein or vegetables, it’s just not meant to be. Carbohydrates are an essential part of a nutritious diet. Eating high-quality carbs often makes you less likely to eat as much fat as you are satisfied and filled by something else. However, fat isn’t all bad and is also a necessary part of our diet. But of course, we often eat too much of it. Increasing unrefined carbs can help mitigate that.
Eating more healthy carbs and less fat (especially saturated fat) can keep your LDL cholesterol low and improve your aging.
Does the Study Apply to All People
Researchers conducted the study with only white women, but it’s reasonable to assume that the findings would apply to men and people of different races and ethnic backgrounds. However, to be certain, additional studies would need to be conducted.
Make High Quality Carbs Part of Your Diet
Carbs are on a list of foods to avoid for many dieters and health-conscious people. But the truth is that you may be doing yourself a disservice by avoiding or limiting all types of carbs. Instead, focus on adding more high-quality carbs and limiting refined carbs, highly-proccessed carbs.
Whole grains like oats, brown rice, quinoa, and barley, as well as fruits, vegetables, and legumes are important components of a healthy diet that promotes healthy aging.
