The keto diet is a high-fat, moderate protein, and low-carb diet. It has been shown to help preserve your body’s ability to use fat for energy rather than carbohydrates, which can help with losing weight. When done correctly, the keto diet can be very effective in losing weight. But just like any other diet, it’s essential to know what you are getting into before implementing it into your life. According to a new study, the risks of this diet outweigh the benefits. A team of health scientists would want to raise some concerns about what they call an extremely low carbs diet: It was connected to five long-term chronic illnesses.
Seven American and Canadian organizations that are specialized in nutrition examined 123 prior studies for a paper just released in Frontiers in Nutrition. The researchers recognize that the approach used by the keto diet to drastically reduce the consumption of carbohydrates and set rapid time parameters to food might influence the way in which the body metabolizes fat.
Neal Barnard, MD, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and a professor at George Washington University’s School of Medicine is one of the co-authors of the paper. He explained that “The foods that are emphasized on a keto diet are the very products that cause colon cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.” This diet was also associated with diabetes and even kidney disease, and, according to Barnard, “New research also shows that these same foods raise the risk for severe COVID-19.”
The keto diet has many other known side effects that are less severe. Insomnia, dizziness, fatigue and headaches are other common complaints associated with the keto diet. Moreover, most of the people following a keto diet for weight loss do it without consulting a doctor first.
