Source: kathrynpollard.com
Boy, have I been hearing a lot about ketogenic diets lately. They seem all the rage. Though there are a couple of instances where they can be used to improve health, one being for young children with epilepsy, and the other is advanced cancer patients. If you don’t fall into those groups, this diet may be dangerous for your health. I thought it would be a good time to post an article originally written for PlantbasedResearch.org a couple of years ago about these carb-deficient diets here!
Limiting carbohydrate deprives the body of it of its natural fuel and its short-term store of it in the form of glycogen. Soon it must resort to breaking down muscle for protein. Then it turns to breaking down fat, as it does in the state of starvation, to spare body protein, which is vital to life. Yay, now we’re burning fat! The body breaks down fatty acids for their substrate ketone bodies for energy and enters the state of ketosis. But a ketonic state is supposed to be reserved for actual emergencies (read: starvation situations), which keeps the body in a state of stress, and low in blood glucose.
Unfortunately eating this way will catch up with most people adding risk of any and all forms of cardiovascular disease, and distressing the liver, heart, brain, prostate and sex organs. Think of all that fat clogging arteries of every size, and going to organs, big and small.
Along with the fat in any low-carb diet comes animal protein which adds risk of cancer and liver dysfunction. Also coming along for the ride is an increase in hormone production, both growth and sex, stimulating cholesterol production and weight gain. Also, with more animal protein comes with more heme iron, a powerful pro-oxidant, damaging cells and causing inflammation, which adds risk for all degenerative diseases, including cognitive degradation.4,5 And further, excess animal protein and fat contribute to kidney disease, which is often hard to detect until late stages, but affecting 8% – 16% people worldwide.
Read the full article here: https://kathrynpollard.com/ketogenesis-and-weight-loss-on-low-carb-diets/
