processed carbs rather than the fruits, vegetables, herbs, and entire grains our ancestors ate. These carbs lack fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Refined carbs increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, whereas complex carbohydrates reduce the risk.
What Happens When We Eat Mostly Fat?
The ketogenic diet is a high, stable fat, moderate protein, and extremely low carbohydrate diet. After many days on a ketogenic diet, your metabolism will adapt to the purposeful increase in fat intake and enter nutritional ketosis. When this occurs, cells use ketones, a byproduct of fat breakdown, for energy instead of glucose.
On the keto diet, the body constantly breaks down fat into ketones, which our cells utilize for energy. Ketones, instead of glucose, power most organs. Ketones are more easily used by high-energy-demanding muscles (heart, and brain). Hepatic (liver) cells cannot utilize ketone bodies as fuel; hence they require glucose. To avoid muscle breakdown, even ketogenic dieters must take glucose-containing carbs.
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5 Chronic Health Conditions Benefited By Keto Diet
The ketogenic diet has recently received renewed attention as a viable treatment option for various debilitating diseases.
Epilepsy
Ketogenic diet therapy (KDT) is an evidence-based epilepsy treatment that is safe and manageable for children 100 years after its initial usage. Researchers now understand how ketosis reduces seizure frequency and severity.
How? Ketone bodies and glucose deprivation impair glutamatergic synaptic impulses, reduce glucose production, and activate potassium channels to govern muscular spasms.
Does the ketogenic diet control seizures? One meta-analysis examined the ketogenic diet in epileptic children. The ketogenic diet reduced epileptic episodes by up to 50 percent and eliminated seizures in 33 percent of newborns after one month.
Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes
Many at risk of metabolic illnesses, including pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes, are intrigued by the ketogenic diet’s ability to regulate glucose levels. The ketogenic diet manages diabetes theoretically: Ketones replace glucose since the keto diet reduces carbs. Thus, blood glucose levels, a metabolic indication, stay steady, and insulin needs decrease.
The ketogenic diet improved glycemic control and weight loss in overweight type 2 diabetics. Low-carbohydrate diets, including ketogenic diets, helped type 2 diabetes patients regulate glucose, triglycerides, and HDL cholesterol, according to a comprehensive review and meta-analysis. They didn’t lose weight long-term.
Another study warns against a ketogenic diet for type 2 diabetics. In healthy insulin producers, the ketogenic diet may cause insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes by altering insulin usage. Thus, adopting a diet without diabetes may increase the risk of diabetes. Ketone-prone diabetics may also have issues. The ketogenic diet is widely used to manage diabetes, but no recommendations exist.
Initial research is encouraging, but the excitement for using the ketogenic diet to manage metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes surpasses