The Keto diet. Advocates may tell you that a ketogenic diet will do everything from make you lose weight, lower blood sugar and cure cancer. It might. At least for the weight and blood sugar, there’s no real mechanism where a ketogenic diet can cure cancer. But what is it?
Ketogenic Diet
The ketogenic diet, or keto diet, is simply a way of tricking the body into using fat for energy instead of sugar. All of your body’s organs will use sugar, specifically glucose, in your blood stream to provide the energy they need to run. You take in proteins and carbohydrates, which are broken down in your stomach and intestines and produce the glucose in your bloodstream. Your pancreas produces insulin, which allows the glucose to be used for energy to power the systems of your body. But almost all of your organs can also use fats to provide power. All except your brain, which needs glucose.
In normal human consumption, a mix of carbohydrates, proteins and fats is consumed. Carbohydrates break down pretty quickly into glucose, providing that sugar rush you feel, and which makes you feel hungry when you don’t have enough glucose in your blood stream. Proteins also break down into glucose, they just take a lot longer, many hours instead of just a few, or even minutes. There’s a whole science about what carbohydrates you should eat since some, such as processed sugars, provide the calories you need but none of the other vitamins and minerals you also need. That’s why many diets say to stay away from white table sugar but it’s okay to drink orange juice even though, in effect, they are both carbohydrates. Proteins are similar in that some give you nutrients, like iron in red meat, that others may not.
Fats are different. Fats, courtesy of your gall bladder (it really is useful), break down into glycerol and fatty acids. Those fatty acids, processed in your liver, can be converted to ketones for energy. It’s the ability of most of your organs to use these ketones that is the key to the keto diet.
Ketosis is a state in which the body simply doesn’t have enough glucose directly available so the organs start to use fats, converted to ketones, for power. This is a quirk of evolution since, even today, the human body is built to survive periods of unavailability of primary food sources. Think famine. Over the last quarter million years or so that homo sapiens has existed, periods of famine have been rather common. In fact, until various forms of transportation existed, humans suffered famines in a relatively small geographic location, unable to easily move people to food sources or food sources to people. Surprisingly, with air travel, railroads, ships and trucks all over, humans still suffer through famines in less developed countries.
Anyway, back to ketosis and those useful ketones. Through a more involved process, some of those fatty acids and ketones can convert to glucose, which your brain can use. The rest of your body can use the ketones directly. Which means that, when carbohydrates and proteins are scarce, the human body stays alive and able to hunt for more carbohydrates and proteins, as well as procreate and add little humans to the world.
So the idea behind a keto diet is to trick your body into using fats instead of carbohydrates and proteins for energy. Most have heard of the Atkins diet and it’s various derivations like the South Beach diet. The idea is to eat lots of protein, a moderate amount of fat and almost no carbohydrates, eliminating carbohydrates for the first two weeks to make your body adjust. The keto diet flips the fats and proteins, looking for 75% fat, 20% protein and 5% or less of carbohydrates.
Think of it. 75% fats. That’s a lot of fat for your body to adjust to and process. And you can’t break into it slowly, unless you drop carbohydrates to almost nothing, your body won’t switch effectively to using fat for energy. And not just any fats, the general rule of preferring unsaturated fats over saturated fats still applies. Hello baked salmon, goodbye fettucini alfredo.
Does it Work?
Well, sort of. Switching to a keto diet will tend to reduce glucose in the blood stream, which tends to curb hunger. The result is, being less hungry, you may eat less. And that’s the magic weight loss formula, consume fewer calories than you expend. So far, this is the only really valid claim about a keto diet and it both doesn’t work for everybody and can be achieved without any special diet.
The keto diet can lead to more stable and lower glucose levels, which benefits diabetics. The keto process can help treat some forms of epilepsy. So it’s not entirely just a fad diet that rarely works. No, it probably won’t cure cancer. But, to be fair, there are a number of clinical studies in progress looking at the effects of adding a keto diet to standard chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Those are wait and see conclusions.
There are two major problems with a keto diet for most people. The first, like any diet, is that you have to stick to it. People tend to gravitate back to old, familiar eating habits over time, starting with a minor lapse and ending up forgetting their diet entirely. Often this happens because the magic diet promised enormous weight loss and they haven’t seen much, if any, of the promised results. Diets take time and if, like many Americans, you’re already in the obese category, you’re not going to be a swimwear model by next season. Especially if you’re older since the body’s metabolism ages along with the rest. Losing a pound a week is considered great by doctors, and you should look for this as a goal. But don’t be upset if dieting won’t even produce this weight loss in you. Everyone is different and their bodies work at different rates.
The second major issue with the keto diet is that it lacks some dietary needs. It’s hard to get enough fiber in your diet without eating carbohydrates for example. Dietary fiber supplements can help here, but fiber is essential in combating cholesterol, which can increase on a high fat diet. A keto diet also lacks a number of nutritional items a body needs. For example, your body needs proteins to build muscles. The lower protein amounts in a keto diet can result in muscle loss, especially in people over 50 who are already at risk. The process of ketone conversion puts more strain on the liver, and can result in liver problems over time. Carbohydrates play a part in mental health. Some studies have found that people on a low carbohydrate diet seem to have higher instances of depression. Whenever you start a new diet, especially one that is imbalanced such as a keto diet, be sure to talk to your doctor. You may find you need some additional testing or supplements. In any case, don’t just concentrate on your weight loss but also on the rest of your body’s changes.
If you really plan to go to a keto diet, it’s all or nothing. Switching the body into ketosis demands an almost total lack of carbohydrates in the diet. You’ll find many keto recipes that tend to ignore this fact, using beans or other vegetables in “small amounts.” Even small amounts of carbohydrates can upset the ketosis process. There are all kinds of keto recipes out there dedicated to replicating your favorite foods. Including pizza. We’re sorry, but pizza has a flour crust, which is a carbohydrate. Yes, you could use almond flour, but that doesn’t make for a decent pizza crust. It’s sort of like a vegetarian hamburger. If you’re vegetarian, why do you want food that tastes like a hamburger but isn’t a hamburger? Isn’t a roasted butternut squash good enough?
Remember, ketosis is the body’s defense against temporary famine, it’s not intended to be a permanent life style. If you choose to make it one, you’ll be in a permanent famine, evolutionarily speaking.
See Part I or Part III of this series.
Disclaimer
As always, the information presented here is informational, not a medical diagnosis or recommendation. Before you start on a keto free diet, or any diet regimine, see your doctor. As always, heed your doctor’s advice. A keto diet isn’t inherently good for you, you need to accommodate for the lack of carbohydrates in your diet. And you won’t necessarily lose weight or feel more energy, these depend on balanced nutrition as well as routine exercise. Remember that fad diets are often fads for many people but, if you maintain a sensible diet that meets your needs, those same fads can work.
Here at HalfCracker Ranch, we don’t practice fad diets. Of course, being fat and lazy does make life challenging at times. 🙂