According to a recent survey of dietitians, the ketogenic diet remains the most popular in the US. Now, the keto diet may seem counterintuitive at first. You eat fatty foods like cheese and eggs and oils and nuts and yes, even bacon. But you consume very few carbs and that brings your body into a state of ketosis where the body shifts from burning sugar and carbs for energy and instead starts utilizing stored fat in the body. The fat is then broken down into molecules called ketones, and they're released and flushed out in your urine.
The keto diet is not new. It became popular as a therapy for epilepsy in the 1920s. But using diet as a therapeutic tool has a history as ancient as the Greeks. Today on Nutramedica, we are taking a deep dive into the therapeutic applications of the ketogenic diet. And our guides on our keto journey are experts Dr David G. Harper and Dr Neil McKinney.
Key Takeaways
- Health Benefits The ketogenic diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet that offers many health benefits. In fact, many studies show that this type of diet can help you lose weight and improve your health. Ketogenic diets have benefits against diabetes, cancer, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s disease.
- Diuretic Effects Ketogenic diets initially are diuretic. So you lose some water weight, which is why it reduces your blood pressure initially. And a lot of people say I lost 10 or 15 pounds in two weeks. That's not fat. That's mostly water that they're losing that comes out of glycogen and is released from cells.
- Keto High Many people experience a very sudden change in their mental state. Their brain switches on and it starts to metabolize ketones, which is actually a preferential fuel in the brain. And you have this sudden experience of “I just feel fantastic”. Ketones are very, very potent fuel for the brain.
- Mental Health For people with psychological issues like depression, bipolar, even neurological issues like autism, have responded well to the ketogenic diet. The effects on Alzheimer's patients have also been established. Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's also benefit. And Parkinson's and even Multiple Sclerosis. Terry Wall's diet from a generation ago is basically a modified ketogenic diet for MS and it's always been helpful getting people back to work or back to studies.
- Diabetes It's useful in diabetes, especially in well-controlled type two diabetes. It's very useful for that and not just for weight loss - although that is significant. Fat creates inflammation. Fatty tissue is inflammatory. The more obese you are, the more inflamed you are and gut inflammation relates to brain inflammation. So, this diet is very anti-inflammatory.
- Cancer There is starting to be some significant evidence that it is good for brain cancer and probably quite a few others. There may be some cancers it's not good for, such as melanoma and prostate. We're not certain, but it definitely has a strong application there because cancer cells can't burn ketones. So you can starve them out while still feeding the rest of the body a healthy diet with keto.
- Inflamation There are three general factors that contribute to chronic disease: obesity, inflammation and insulin resistance. And those three things all make each other worse. So once you become more obese, you'll become more insulin resistant, you'll become more inflamed. What a ketogenic diet does is reduce all of those elements.
Key Quote
“The diseases we are managing, our metabolic diseases, which are cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes, are all metabolic diseases. Rather than managing the symptoms, we should think about the root cause of these symptoms. I call them the axis of illness: obesity, inflammation and insulin resistance. And those three things all make each other worse. So once you become more obese, you'll become more insulin resistant, you'll become more inflamed. What a ketogenic diet does is reduce all of those elements”.
- Dr David G Harper PhD
Surprising Fact
About two-thirds of people in the US are overweight or obese. They estimate that the cost of treating type 2 diabetics by the end of this decade will be about $660 billion, which is the same as the US defense budget this year. So that will bankrupt the United States. So, it's not a matter of “should” people do this, we need a solution.
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The opinions expressed in this Nutramedica program are those of the guests and contributors. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Nutritional Fundamentals For Health Inc.
This video is intended for licensed or registered health professionals and students of health professions only. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Information contained in these programs is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
