Keto diet might be all the rage, but it’s not balanced
IT’S a fashionable diet, endorsed by a range of A-list celebrities, including Kourtney Kardashian.
But trying to lose weight by following an expensive keto diet can lead to nausea, insomnia and dizziness, claims a dietitian, Sophie Medlin, a lecturer in nutrition and dietetics at King’s College, London.
Making the stark warning, she argued that the diet could lead to “keto flu” because it was not balanced and could easily cause nutrient deficiencies.
The keto diet, or ketogenic diet, developed in the 1920s to treat children with epilepsy, has become all the rage, endorsed by celebrities.
It is one of a series of fashionable low-carb diets that include the Atkins diet, the South Beach diet and the Zone diet. There are hundreds of people selling ketogenic diet plans online and on social media, with big promises of the results to be expected.
Ketones are the source of energy that the body uses when it’s burning fat. Ketones are produced in weight loss regardless of the type of diet you are following.
So actually, anyone who is losing weight is actually on a keto diet.
It doesn’t matter to your body whether the fat it’s burning is from your existing reserves or from the high-fat meal that you just ate. And the production of ketones doesn’t necessarily mean you are burning body fat.
So when keto dieters add fat to their diet through bulletproof coffee or coconut oil, it is burnt as fuel instead of body fat – which defeats the object of the diet achieving weight loss.
By adding additional fat to the diet, your energy balance will remain positive regardless of the fuel (carbohydrate, fat or protein) and this will promote weight gain.
Inducing ketosis – a natural state for the body, when it is almost completely fuelled by fat – in therapeutic diets is a skill that needs the close supervision of a dietitian in a specialist clinic.
Concerns include the impact on important gut microbes that are likely to be starved of essential fibre required for healthy balance.
The potential effect of this on long-term health is still not clear.
People with pancreatic or liver problems, or problems with fat metabolism, should also avoid the ketogenic diet.
Following a low-carbohydrate diet, rather than a no-carbohydrate diet, is much more practical. – Daily Mail