Ketogenic or keto diets are high-fat, low-carbohydrate diets that have been used to manage seizures and promote weight loss.
This diet has garnered sizeable attention as a lifestyle intervention for managing obesity and diabetes.
However, be aware of some of the disadvantages to this diet.
Keto Diet Impact on Metabolic Health
According to recent long-term study conducted in mice, the study’s findings show that a keto diet causes extreme fat storage in the liver, an increase in blood lipid (fat) levels, and weakened glucose regulation.
These results raise concerns about the use of a keto diet for managing diabetes and obesity. It’s ambiguous whether it’s safe over a long period. Therefore, considering the potential health risk, there exists a need to be cautious of this diet.
A recent study published in Science shows that mice maintained on a keto diet for almost a year showed high blood lipid (fat) levels, fatty liver disease, and an impaired ability to regulate blood glucose (sugar) levels due to insufficient insulin secretion.
The keto diet was efficient in influencing weight loss in mice with obesity. Nevertheless, the diet had a negative impact on metabolic health.
Possible Long-Term Risk
Amandine Chaix, PhD, one of the study’s authors, and an assistant professor of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology at the University of Utah, noted that these effects of the keto diet on glucose regulation were reversible after its discontinuation.
Dr. Chaix noted that the study’s,
“…results suggest that more studies are warranted in humans to establish the cardio metabolic benefits and risks of prolonged [keto diet] feeding.”
These findings draw attention to the consideration of long-term risks of a keto diet in the clinic despite its potential to cause weight loss. Additionally, the findings also warrant the need for further research in animals and humans.
Dr Chaix added,
“Our diet intervention was maintained for about a year, which represents approximately one third of a mouse’s lifespan, allowing us to assess long-term consequences of feeding a keto diet versus much faster than we could in humans.
[Furthermore], this is a very comprehensive study that carefully examined multiple biomarkers of cardiometabolic health, including a glucose challenge mimicking what may happen in people going off a keto diet.”
Mice versus Humans
The study’s first author, Molly Gallop, PhD noted,
“To address this, we also put mice on a high protein, high-fat non-ketogenic diet which caused similar problems to a ketogenic diet and thereby suggesting that other high-fat, low-carbohydrate diets, like what many people consume, may also pose a risk to metabolic health if our mouse models recapitulate what happens in humans.”
Gallop further noted, however,
“[a] caveat to this study is that it was conducted in mice, so the results may not necessarily recapitulate what happens in humans.
While there is evidence that hyperlipidemia is a side effect of a ketogenic diet for epilepsy treatment in children, and other studies in humans suggest that a ketogenic diet impairs the body’s ability to respond to glucose, our study warrants more research in humans.”
Though a keto diet may be effective in resulting in higher-weighted mice weight loss, it was associated with adverse effects on metabolic health.
Again, it’s indefinite whether it’s safe over a long period. Therefore, considering the potential health risk, be cautious of this diet.
On the other hand, a low-fat diet may be more effective than a keto diet in weight loss. And a low-fat-diet improves metabolic health.
This recent study is published in Science, titled, “A long-term ketogenic diet causes hyperlipidemia, liver dysfunction, and glucose intolerance from impaired insulin secretion in mice.”
