It sounds crazy that consuming a significant amount of fats every day has to do anything with weight loss and health benefits. Right?
Being high fat and deficient carb diet often raise concerns about its impact on health. As cholesterol is associated with heart strokes and CVD and other health risks, it is natural for you to believe that a high-fat diet can lead you to a heart specialist’s clinic one day.
With passing time, Scientific investigations are killing misconceptions about a high-fat and low-carb eating lifestyle.
If you are considering starting a keto diet but wondering, how healthy is Keto diet? Let me tell you; Keto is a safe diet to choose if you do not have any pre-existing health issues like liver and kidney problems. And scientific studies back what I just said.
A scientific investigation conducted in 2010 declares keto diet NOT GUILTY in having any relation to cause heart problems in a person. This meta-analysis concludes that saturated fat intake has nothing to do with an increased risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD.
If somebody is facing health issues after starting a keto diet, they might need to look for other unhealthy habits and choices they are adopting along with the keto diet.
For example, being on a keto diet doesn’t mean you can eat half a kilo of butter and drink a liter of coconut oil, and so on. What I am trying to say is, a high-fat diet doesn’t allow you to eat unhealthily.
Choosing the right fats, proteins, and carbs to eat is a hard job. So you can opt for expert help. For personalized consultations and daily meal plans, you can take help from (your link)
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How healthy is a Keto diet?
A diet helping you with your Heart, Brain, Kidney, Liver, Skin, overall wellbeing, and confidence, how bad it could be?
A Ketogenic or low-carb diet can improve many neurological conditions, for example, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, Multiple sclerosis, Autism, and Alzheimer’s.
It is more than just a weight-loss strategy.
Our brains and hearts function 25% more efficiently when using ketones as the primary source of energy.
You can use the keto diet to improve your overall health by considering food quality, a sound sleeping schedule, and a balanced intake of micronutrients.
By combining the ketogenic diet with other healthy habits like a workout routine, you can get so many health benefits by following a keto diet.
There is always room for more evidence, and not everything is for everyone, but check on so many benefits keto diet can bring.
Here is the list of Top 8 health benefits of Ketogenic diet:
1. Fast and effective weight loss
This diet’s core idea is to obtain your daily energy by burning your body’s stored fat reserves. A ketogenic diet targets to potentially change your body’s energy consumption and storage pattern.
Our bodies are naturally programmed to get energy from glucose molecules produced by the carbohydrates we take into our diet.
When our bodies are deprived of these carbohydrates, our natural mechanism shifts to produce ketones. Ketones are alternate energy fuel of our metabolic system.
Ketones are produced by burning our body fats. When our body starts producing ketones from burning fats, it is called to be in a state of Ketosis.
Ketosis is the primary goal of ketogenic diets which is not so easy to attain. BUT! BUT! BUT!
Even though it requires a lot of self-control, you have to go through a stream of mood swings, low energy, nausea, and restlessness may be, once you attain it, it will fastly remove all your extra fats.
According to a study, conducted among 1,569 participants, the ones opting for a high-fat and low carbohydrate diet resulted in losing more weight than the others opting for low-fat diets.
According to another study in 2007, groups of pre-menopausal obese women were tested for four different diets, Zone, Ornish, LEARN, and low carb Atkins. Subjects with a low carb diet showed a better weight loss over one year period than other diets.
This diet doesn’t make you starve and improves your emotional control, making it highly effective and Quit proof.
2. Help in controlling diabetes Type 2
It might look insane to treat a diabetic patient with a high-fat diet, but there is a science behind it.
The Keto diet is based on low carbohydrate consumptions which is an essential part of controlling type 2 diabetes.
Carbohydrates convert into glucose hence increasing blood sugar levels which is a dangerous condition for a diabetic patient.
Opting for a keto diet is ideal for such patients because they will be getting all their required energy without consuming hazardous carbohydrates and feeling low. It may also reduce their insulin needs.
According to a study conducted in 2008, a low-carb diet can improve and reverse type 2 diabetes by improving glycemic control, reduced the use of medication, and helped in weight loss.
In a 2017 study, similar results were found regarding improvement in type 2 diabetes and obesity. In a nutshell, keto diet benefits type 2 diabetes by lowering:
- Blood sugar levels
- HbA1c levels
- Insulin levels
Despite being practically useful, Keto comes with a little bit of risk of developing DKA, so it is highly recommended to take advice from your health consultant before moving into a keto diet.
If you opt for this diet after a consultation, you will need to check your blood sugar levels regularly throughout the day.
3. Improved Heart Health
What? Heart health with a high-fat diet? Unbelievable no?
You are surprised because we always hear that high cholesterol can destroy your heart worst than breakups!
But what we do not consider often is that; cholesterol is not of one type only. There is LDL (low-density lipoproteins), but there is HDL (high-density lipoproteins) as well.
And observations tell that High levels of HDL are associated with lower risks of heart disease.
High levels of HDL can be attained only by natural ways and not medicines. And there is no favouritism in saying that the Keto diet is the best way to do so.
In a meta-analysis in 2012, researchers found a rise in healthy HDLs and lower LDLs in the body because of a low carb diet. They found that a low carb diet can lower the chances of cardiovascular risk factors and heart failure.
Researchers from Saint Louis University found that high fat or keto diet could completely prevent, or even reverse heart failure.
Keto diet may not suit everyone, and you will need expert help in determining if it will prove the right choice for you.
Most people keto lifestyle will help decrease LDL and VLDL cholesterol levels and increase HDL levels. So you can think of giving it a try.
4. Improved Kidney Health
Keto diet can help you with your kidney health too!
When kidneys fail to adequately filter and dispose of waste (which is their primary function), it leads to many kidney diseases and even kidney failure.
Patients with high blood pressure, obesity, and type 2 diabetes are at increased risk for kidney failure.
A recent meta-analysis measured the impact of a low carb diet on renal function. Data of 1000 people from nine randomized controlled trials (RCT) found that a low carbohydrate diet was not harmful for renal function in obese individuals; instead, a low carb diet may improve renal function (thanks to its weight loss effect!).
5. Improves many Neurological Conditions
In history, the Keto diet was initially designed to help people with epilepsy in the 1920s.
It is reported to help improve many other conditions related to the human brain, like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, Autism, Migraines even anxiety and depression. Keto diet can reduce the risks of certain types of brain cancers as well.
Like this one conducted in 2019, several studies suggest that the keto diet may help reduce symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and slow down its progression.
Research has shown that a ketogenic diet shows reductions in seizures in epileptic children. One study found this diet helping and improving symptoms of Parkinson’s disease also. Some studies suggest this diet can improve outcomes of traumatic brain injuries too.
You might have seen many people saying how good and confident they feel after going Keto and how happy they feel about their journey. Research backs it scientifically by proving that a ketogenic diet improves anxiety and depression by working as good as anti-depressants.
6. Helps with High Blood Pressure
Blood pressure (BP) is the pressure the blood exerts on the blood vessels in our body. The value for optimal blood pressure is 120/80, where 80 is diastolic, and 120 represents systolic blood pressure.
The unit of measurement for BP is mmHg (millimetre of mercury). When the heart pumps blood into the arteries (systole), the pressure is high, 120 mmHg.
While the heart relaxes during heartbeats and refreshes itself for the next contraction, the blood pressure in arteries is low because the heart is not actively pumping it, it is lower up to 80 mmHg.
High blood pressure, i.e. above 140/90 mmHg, HypertensionHypertension, is very likely to develop heart disease in a person.
Diet is a critical factor in controlling and optimizing HypertensionHypertension. According to many studies, a low carb diet successfully helped in lowering blood pressure.
Like in a 2010 study for weight loss investigation, they also found betterment in blood pressure conditions along with successful weight loss.
A 2012 meta-analysis found that a low carb high-fat diet effectively controlled systolic and diastolic blood pressures and kept them regular along with a rise in healthy HDL and decrease in LDLs.
7. Improvement and Reversal of Fatty Liver Disease
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NFLD) affects over 1 billion people worldwide, stats reveal.
Though every human contains a little bit of fat in our livers, when it makes up to 5% of a liver, it is a fatty liver which can lead to many exceptionally severe health conditions.
Apart from being genetic, excess energy intake, too many refined carbs, too much sugar, and a sedentary lifestyle can also lead to an NFLD.
The good news is, Keto can help improve and reverse NFLD.
In an eight week RCT, consuming a low-carb diet showed a successful reduction in liver fats compared to low-fat diets.
Several other small studies back the results and even suggest that low carb eating approach may reverse Fatty liver disease.
Like Spanish Mediterranean ketogenic diet is reported to reduce liver fats in 13 people out of 14. Out of which three people showed a complete resolution.
In another trial, four out of five patients with NAFLD who ate a diet that limited carbs to 20 grams per day for six months showed improvements in fatty liver, inflammation, and fibrosis.
Virta Health’s large ongoing study collected and analyzed data from people with type 2 diabetes with most NAFLD participants. The ones who followed a very-low-carb diet showed reductions in liver fat and fibrosis scores.
8. Improved Acne and Skin Health
Going Keto may help you get rid of your Acne too. Because individual health conditions like kidney and liver problems can result in acne breakouts, Keto can help you in improving all of these problems.
Jennifer Gordon, a dermatologist from Texas, says that “keto may help improve your complexion as you are cutting back on the right carbs and upping your intake of the right fats”.
Keto diet targets to reduce carb intake, which is a significant cause of inflammations in the body; this promotes Acne.
Besides, the keto diet helps you take more Good fats like omega-three fatty acids that are notoriously good for healthy skin and hair.
Some professionals also suggested that increasing healthy-fat intake may help soothe dry, itchy, scaly skin.
If correctly done, going Keto can help you with your skin health and your heart, brain, kidneys, and liver.
For more guidance, consultation, personalized evaluation, and meal plans, you can take help from our specialized keto trainer.