Counting Carbs at What Cost

American consumers are constantly being sold on various different diets. One diet that has become popular in recent years is the ketogenic diet: low carbohydrates and high fat. While this diet can be helpful for individuals with various medical conditions – like epilepsy – is it helpful for otherwise healthy individuals?

 

Burén, et al.’s (2021) findings indicate that the diet may come with unadvertised problems. The study followed seventeen female university students. They ate a ketogenic diet for four weeks and a control diet after each, blood samples were drawn to analyze lipid profiles and levels of ketone bodies (what the body uses for fuel instead of sugar on a ketogenic diet). In both conditions, participants lost weight, though the ketogenic diet group lost more (~6lbs instead of ~2lbs). While the keto diet seems to deliver the weight loss it promises consumers, what the researchers found was that it also significantly increased the levels of LDL cholesterol in the womens’ blood. LDL cholesterol is the “bad” cholesterol that can leave fatty deposits on the inside of blood vessels, leading to heart attacks and strokes. This high fat diet led to high levels of fat absorption, therefore high levels of fat in the blood as it was being circulated to provide energy to cells.

 

The keto diet, not unlike any other diet, prides itself on giving its followers a healthier lifestyle. While that may be the case for people for whom the diet is medically necessary, that claim does not seem to hold water when it comes to the average person. A few extra pounds with a good blood profile is going to be much healthier than a skinnier person with a horrible blood lipid profile. Is the keto diet really being honest with consumers about the risks? Are they following the Jesuit principle of non-malfeasance offering a diet that increases “bad” cholesterol to people for whom it is not medically necessary? Do consumers have all the information they need to make an informed decision about starting a diet that could change their health so drastically? The answer to all these questions seems to be “no”.

 

Burén, J, et al. 2021. A Ketogenic Low-Carbohydrate High-Fat Diet Increases LDL Cholesterol in Healthy, Young, Normal-Weight Women: A Randomized Controlled Feeding Trial. Nutrients, 13(3): 814.