Those who have been dreaming of achieving body goals at some point must have heard about the ketogenic diet or also called “the keto diet”. This diet was viral in 2018-2020, and was popularized by stars and celebrities. The keyword “keto” even reached 25.4 million searches worldwide in 2020. This makes the keto diet one of the most searched topics around food and nutrition theme according to Google.
Keto diet’s fame made a lot of people are in ecstatic to join this diet as it offers significant weight loss in a short period of time.
However, this phenomenon leaves us in wonder, how keto diet works actually? Can this keto diet be the right choice for a healthy lifestyle?
To answer that, let’s take a deeper look about the keto diet and its positive and negative sides.
What Is The Keto Diet?
Even though the keto diet gains its reputation in the 21st century, it turns out that this diet has existed since the 20th century, precisely in the 1920s to the 1930s. The keto diet at the time was used by doctors to treat epilepsy patients. By using “fasting” principle, which is a low-calorie restricted-diet by limiting certain foods, this diet was a success to cure the patients. The positive outcome of the keto diet then inspired many and later was used to achieve weight loss.
How Does the Keto Diet Work?
The main rule of the keto diet is to limit carbohydrate intake and increase fat intake. Here is the percentage of each macronutrient (carbohydrates, fats, proteins) in the keto diet per day:
From the table, we can see that the percentage of carbohydrates is very small, which is only 5-10% (carbohydrates in a normal diet is around 45-65%). To put it in a perspective, 5-10% carbohydrates (from the total energy needs of 2000 calories) is equal to two loaves of bread or 1 scoop of rice. Let us keep in mind that this is the total carbohydrates for one day.
With a small percentage of carbohydrates and huge percentage of fats in keto diet, the body will consequently adapt. The liver organ will work to break down the fatty acids in the body and turn them into ketone bodies. These ketone bodies will be processed further to generate glucose. In other words, the main source of energy used by the body is now no longer sugar or glucose from carbohydrates, but rather from ketone bodies, which are the results from the fatty acids’ breakdown. This condition is referred as ketosis, which became the origin of the name of this diet.
Advantages vs Disadvantages of the Keto Diet
If you are thinking to go for the keto diet and need considerations, the following table compare the positives and negatives of the keto diet.
From the table above, we can see that the first advantage of the keto diet is the rapid weight loss. This is because the consumed and stored fats are burned to produce an energy supply. However, some people experienced a very extreme weight loss in the first weeks of the keto diet. According to studies, this is due to the burning of glycogen (a form of carbohydrates’ deposit). Glycogens, which can be found in the muscles and liver, is basically bounded by water (1 gram of glycogen is bounded by 3 grams of water). That said, when the glycogen is burned, the water that binds it is also lost and excreted through the urine. So, if weight loss occurs quickly, it is because not only fats are gone, but also the water in our body.
Another advantage of the keto diet is the feeling of increased satiety when on a diet. This is because fats and proteins are macronutrients that require a longer digestion and burning process than carbohydrates. So that people who are on the keto diet experience less hunger.
The third advantage is that the keto diet provides more flexibility to consume fatty foods, because the very high fat intake is needed. However, this can be a boomerang for a lot of people who misuses this ‘freedom’ by eating any fat-rich foods without wise selection and calculation. In fact, a person on a keto diet needs to consume more non-saturated fats, which can be obtained from avocados, salmon, mackerel, and nuts (almonds, cashews, hazelnuts). If you do not pay attention to the fat intake consumed, then what happens next is an increased saturated fat in the body. Saturated fats that accumulate over time can result in heart disease.
The potential downsides of the keto diet are also due to the difficulty of maintaining this diet for the long term. To get such a large fat intake, a person on the keto diet needs to do accurate calculations and intake records so that they can continue to be in a state of ketosis. Otherwise, the body will return to its default metabolism, which is to burn carbohydrates as the main energy supply which means no longer in a state of ketosis. Thus, the weight sooner or later will come back. Therefore, going on a keto diet can be quite troublesome and tiring for those who are not used to going on a diet program.
Apart from the technicalities, the keto diet also negatively impact the health conditions. As you can see in the table, the keto diet can cause a variety of keto flu symptoms, such as constipation, headaches, nausea, insomnia, fatigue, and irritability. Constipation occurs because the body lacks of fiber. This is due to low fruit and vegetable consumption that are high in carbohydrates. Meanwhile, headaches, nausea, and fatigue can be caused by low blood sugar due to low carbohydrate intake.
In addition, a keto diet person is also at risk of losing important nutrients, such as vitamins and minerals (micronutrient deficiencies). A study mentioned that calcium, vitamin D, magnesium, and phosphorus cannot be fulfilled with the keto diet. Kathy McManus, a director of the Department of Nutrition at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, also added that individuals who don’t consume enough vegetables and fruits (as individuals with the keto diet do), will be lack of selenium, magnesium, phosphorus, as well as vitamins B and C.
In a long-term perspective, research suggests the keto diet can potentially harm vital organs such as the kidneys. This is because the keto diet, which characterized with high in animal fats consumption, causes the blood to become acidic. To neutralize the acidity of the blood, the kidneys need to excrete calcium through the urine. If too much calcium needs to be removed from the body, while the kidney capacity continues to decreased, then this can lead to the formation of kidney stones.
Conclusion
From the passages, we now understand that the keto diet with low-carb and high-fat principles has positive impacts and and negative impacts on health and well-being. Although some studies mention its benefits in the short term, the main benefits of the keto diet are aimed at specialized populations such as epilepsy patients. Meanwhile, for a normal person without epilepsy, so far there have been little to no evidences on the long-term benefits of the keto diet. Therefore, the keto diet cannot be considered a recommended weight loss diet so far.
In addition, beyond the ongoing debate about this diet, the way to determine the right diet is also studied in nutrigenetics. To put it simple, nutrigenetics study observe how each of individual can have a unique response to a certain diet due to genetic factors. According nutrigenetics experts, a person who has the TFAP2B gene allele G, if he consumes a diet that is high in protein, then his body will respond by gaining weight. On the other side, if a person with the FTO gene allele A consumes a diet high in protein, the body response would be a weight loss. These two opposing responses to the same diet might provoke us to ask: “Which diet is the right one for me?”
In Nalagenetics, we can help you get to know your nutrition needs and the right diet according to your genetic blueprints with NutriReadyTM. Contact us via WhatsApp at wa.me/628119941440 and start your personalized nutrition now!
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