Scientists have concerning message for anyone trying the 'Keto diet'
Topics: Food and Drink, Health, Life
Rhianna Benson
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
Topics: Food and Drink, Health, Life
From juice cleanses to OMADs ('one meal a day'), intermittent fasting to Atkins, diet culture has given us no shortage of dramatic chapters.
Every few years, a new scheme seems to land on the scene, vowing to help part-takers reach their ideal weight, as well as promising a number of secondary glow-ups, including peachy skin and endless energy.
In recent times, however, only a handful of plans have inspired as much devotion as the Keto diet - a high-fat, low-carb eating plan that induces a metabolic state (called ketosis) to the body's energy source from carbs to fat.
Initially used as a means of helping to treat both obesity and type 2 diabetes, this diet has skyrocketed in popularity over the years, with more and more part-takers claiming they saw results fast.
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Apparently, however, anyone prepping their avocado-bacon salads for the week should take a minute to consider the findings of a recent study into the potential consequences of the Keto diet, some of which are rather unnerving.
Scientists from the University of Utah Health Department rallied together to explore this specific meal regime over long periods of time, finding that the Keto diet's overall safety wasn't totally up to par.
Summarising the need for further research into the longer-term biological effects of the diet, the study's leader and assistant professor of anatomy and physiology, Molly Gallop, PhD, said: "We’ve seen short-term studies and those just looking at weight, but not really any studies looking at what happens over the longer term or with other facets of metabolic health."
During ketosis, the body's liver produces ketone bodies - molecules used as an alternative food for the brain, and to stabilise activity within the nerves.
This effect is actually the exact same as what occurs in the body during starvation, when the body is forced to rely on fat for energy instead of glucose.
As part of the study - which has been published in Science Advances - conducted on mice, the team discovered that longer-term adherence to the Keto diet disrupted the animals' metabolic function, as well as changed how the body processes fats and sugars for the worse.
The body weight, food intake, blood fat profiles, blood sugar and insulin levels, and liver fat accumulation of the mice - who'd been placed into four separate diet groups, one of whom was fed a Keto diet - were measured over nine months.
While those on Keto were found to have lost weight in both male and female mice compared to those on a high-fat Western diet, these animals were also found to have developed severe metabolic complications, some of which started within days.
Amandine Chaix, PhD - an assistant professor of nutrition and integrative physiology, and senior author on the study - explained: "One thing that’s very clear is that if you have a really high-fat diet, the lipids have to go somewhere, and they usually end up in the blood and the liver."
She added of the accumulation of fat in the liver - especially in male mice over females: "The ketogenic diet was definitely not protective in the sense of fatty liver disease."
Scientists also found that, after three months, the mice on Keto had much lower levels of blood sugar and insulin, being that cells in the pancreas weren’t secreting enough of the latter, likely due to high levels of fat.
Chaix explained of this odd paradox: "The problem is that when you then give these mice a little bit of carbs, their carb response is completely skewed. Their blood glucose goes really high for really long, and that’s quite dangerous."
On how these findings can be transferred onto humans, the experts add that they hint at a number of previously unexplored long-term negative metabolic health risks.
"I would urge anyone to talk to a health care provider if they’re thinking about going on a ketogenic diet," Gallop urged.