The keto diet has gained a lot of popularity in the last year. It supposedly allows people to lose a lot of weight and still be able to eat bacon and eggs…
But what do we know about the safeness of this diet?
Doctor Michael Greger from nutritionfacts.org has recently published an interesting series of videos on the ketogenic diet (keto diet).
According to him, the available science is clear: the keto diet is very dangerous for our health.
If you don’t know what nutritionfacts.org is… It is a strictly non-profit, science-based public service provided by Dr. Greger. It provides free videos on the latest in nutrition research. There are more than a thousand videos on nearly every aspect of healthy eating, with all sources cited.
Let’s start with this video in which Dr. Greger explores the safeness of the keto diet.
Keto diet and weight loss
People usually try the keto diet because they are attracted by the idea of losing weight fast. And they do! How exciting!
But what’s really happening in their bodies?
In the next video, Greger looks at the studies that showed keto diets do not speed up the fat loss, they actually slow it down and decrease it.
Here’s another video of Dr. Greger explaining how the theory that ketogenic diets have some sort of metabolic advantage has been experimentally falsified. The science shows the opposite: ketogenic diets actually slow body fat loss!
Keto diet and diabetes
The keto proponents claim they can reverse type 2 diabetes. They accuse doctors to only treat the symptoms of the disease (which is true) when we should treat the cause.
The keto theory is that we shouldn’t eat carbohydrates to keep our blood sugars low…
Sure, if you eat mostly fat, your blood sugars will stay low. It’s a no brainer.
But you’re not treating the disease, which is carbohydrate intolerance (or insulin resistance).
By eating a keto diet, you may be making the disease worse! Dr. Greger looks at the available science on the topic in the next video.
Fighting cancer or promoting it?
Have you ever heard that the ketogenic diet can fight cancer?
The theory is that cancer cells feed on sugar so we should just stop eating sugar (our body’s main fuel…).
What the keto gurus don’t tell you (perhaps they don’t even know) is that ketones also feed cancer cells!
In this video, Dr. Greger looks at the science on keto as a cancer-fighting diet (or a cancer-promoting diet…).
So, what do you think of all this? Have you ever been on the keto diet?
I have never tried it and never will. I stay away from saturated fat and animal fat which has been shown to raise the risks of all-cause mortality.
The vegan keto doesn’t seem to cause any harm, but since I don’t suffer from epilepsy, I don’t see why I should be on the keto diet.
I prefer to do prolonged fasting instead to get the benefits people are looking for in this type of diet. A yearly 7-day fast allows to lose about 10 pounds, slow down ageing, regenerate cells, rebuild the immune system, increase energy, etc… the list is long.
Try my 7-day program, it’s more exciting than being on a diet for the rest of your life!
