By Yervand Kondrahjian | Staff Writer
What is a keto diet? Unlike other low-carb diets, which focus on protein, a keto plan centers on fat, which supplies as much as 90% of daily calories. The keto diet is primarily used to help reduce the frequency of epileptic seizures in children. While it has also been tried for weight loss, only short-term results have been studied, and the results have been mixed. We don’t know if it works in the long term, nor whether it’s safe. But a diet that focuses on fat, rather than greens? This might sound unusual at first, but we must understand the reasons for such a diet: Its benefits and drawbacks.
Before delving into the diet itself, let us understand its components: Ketone bodies, a form of fuel that the liver creates from stored fat, is a key component of the keto diet. Some of the bodies include Acetone, Acetoacetate, and Di-hydroxybutyrate (HB). This diet requires that you deprive yourself of carbohydrates fewer than 20 to 50 grams of carbs per day, and it typically takes a few days to reach a state of ketosis without forgetting that eating too much protein can interfere with it.
The four basic types of ketogenic diets are as follows:
- Standard: You would keep fat intake high with 80 percent of calories coming from fat and a low amount of carbs at under 25 grams of net carbs or less.
- Cycling: You are adding more carbs on training days or using net carbs of 10 to 20 grams allowance around the workout, so you might eat them just before or after your workout.
- High protein: 30 percent of calories come from protein with the other 65 percent from fat and a tiny 5 percent from carbs.
- Targeted: Again you’d eat the same food as you would on standard keto, but you would time your carbs intake according to workouts. You might also increase your carbs budget too as you would with cycling keto-type.
Based on research, the keto diet can effectively reverse the metabolic abnormalities of patients with Diabetes Mellitus type 2. Carbohydrates restriction showed a significantly greater reduction in HbA1c level, fasting glucose, fasting insulin, and reduce in weight in patients with DM2. It showed a reduction in triglyceride levels in the blood which showed better results than a low-fat diet. This might come as a shock to most of you, but it is scientifically true: Some fat diets reduce unhealthy fats.
On the other hand, the keto diet is not as sustainable as other diets. It has a significantly high demand for meat, animal products, deforestation, and environmental challenges imposed by the increasing greenhouse gases emitted by cattle. Also, there is insufficient data and research to support the claim that the keto diet lowers blood lipids. Plus, there are possible side effects of keto that include keto flu, fatigue, constipation or diarrhea, headache, muscle cramps, and vitamin deficiency. In addition, the keto diet shows no difference in reduction in glucose, insulin, and Hb1Ac between both diets than that of a normal low-fat diet.
People might see this diet as a “trendy” one and impose it on themselves, but professional decisions should be made to assess the methodological quality of the ideal diet before making any recommendations about adopting any one of the different diets. All these pros and cons lead to one conclusion: There is no definite recommendation for or against the use of the keto diet, based on methodological quality, risk of increased LDL-cholesterol, and most importantly, long-term evidence of better clinical outcomes. This is why the best way to choose a diet is to consult a professional dietician.