Diets supplying less than fifty grams of carbohydrate daily, a threshold below which Ketosis regularly occurs, are known as Ketogenic diets. A key carbohydrate rule on the KinetiX plan is to avoid Ketogenic diets like a bad smell.
Ketogenic diets offer no weight loss advantage over isocaloric non- Ketogenic diets. The former, however, have been repeatedly shown to cause numerous side effects not normally seen on the latter. Ketogenic diets have repeatedly been shown to cause cramps, lethargy, bad breath, constipation, and menstrual irregularities.
While low-carb authors pay lip service to the importance of plant foods, their anti-carbohydrate diatribes convince many followers that carbohydrates are best consumed in miniscule amounts or avoided entirely. The Atkins Diet, its best-selling knock-off Protein Power, and The South Beach Diet all consist of two-week induction phases where carbohydrate intake is kept extremely low. Atkins even recommended a short-term “fat fast” consisting of nothing but protein and fat for especially stubborn weight loss plateaus. Their carb-phobic recommendations have made a marked impression; spend even a small amount of time on low-carb and zero-carb Internet forums, and you’ll find no shortage of sadly misguided carnivorous participants who consider their avoidance of plant foods a badge of honour. Those who do include plant foods in their Ketogenic diets often opt for salad vegetables, which contain very little carbohydrate.
Ketogenic Diets and Your Heart: Not a Good Match
The resultant lack of nutrient-rich plant foods on strict Ketogenic diets causes significant reductions in the intake of critical minerals such as potassium and magnesium, while the lack of carbohydrate simultaneously increases sodium and potassium excretion. In today’s overfed but undernourished society, where mineral intakes routinely fall below the meager RDA levels, this is the last thing most people need. Just what you can expect upon commencing a Ketogenic diet was elucidated by a New York Times writer, who after three days on the initial Ketogenic phase of Drs. Michael and Mary Dane Eades’ Protein Power began feeling “quite ill — dizzy, and with a pounding heart”. That her situation was remedied only with “lots of beef broth and potassium pills” clearly illustrates the woefully poor nutritional quality of Ketogenic diets. Potassium, after all, is abundant in the food supply and anyone eating a mixed diet containing fresh plant foods should have little trouble meeting their potassium needs.
The accelerated sodium and potassium excretion seen on very low-carbohydrate diets has also been shown to disturb blood pressure regulation sufficient to cause postural hypotension. This condition involves a sudden fall in blood pressure upon standing from a seated position that can cause dizziness, lightheadedness and even fainting.
The mineral losses seen on Ketogenic diets are not to be taken lightly – they can be deadly.
Coronary heart disease (CHD), which is what most people think of when they discuss heart disease, is typically a long-term process involving deterioration of the arteries supplying blood to the heart. CHD, however, is hardly the only cause of heart attack. Severe arrhythmias can induce heart failure, and ventricular fibrillation, the type experienced by Rachel Huskey, is a particularly nasty form of arrhythmia that can cause death within minutes. Minerals such as potassium, calcium and magnesium are essential for muscle contraction. As the heart is an especially important muscle that contracts twenty-four hours a day, every day of your life, it doesn’t take a genius to deduce the possible cardiac consequences if availability of these critical minerals is low. If you want your heart to keep beating as strong as possible for as long as possible, avoid mineral-depleting Ketogenic diets like the plague.
The Grumpy Diet
Likewise if you wish to maintain a cheerful and positive mental outlook. Numerous studies have detected poorer cognitive and psychological outcomes on Ketogenic diets. In the longest-running of these studies, researchers from Adelaide, Australia compared obese volunteers randomized to either a Ketogenic diet (35% protein, 61% fat, 4% carbohydrate) or a moderate-carbohydrate diet (24% protein, 30% fat, 46% carbohydrate) for 12 months. Both groups lost an equal amount of weight, but only the moderate carbohydrate group improved its scores on several widely-used and validated psychological profiling tests. Scores on the Profile of Mood States subscales of anger-hostility, confusion-bewilderment, and depression-dejection and the Total Mood Disturbance of the Profile of Mood States score were significantly lower in the higher-carbohydrate group than in the Ketogenic group. On the Spielberger State Anxiety Inventory, differences were also evident between the diet groups at 12 months.
The researchers pointed out that mood state scores on average for both groups throughout the study remained within the normal range for healthy adults. The low-carb group, it seems, was simply at the more angry, confused, and dejected end of the normal range. The researchers were also quick to point out their findings were limited to “healthy, obese, young to middle-aged adults with normal mood state and cannot be generalized to clinical populations”.
An insight into just what could happen to “clinical populations” (those with diagnosed psychiatric or behavioural conditions) was provided by a 2006 case report published in the journal Psychosomatics. At the age of forty-seven and weighing 252 pounds, a woman with well-controlled panic disorder decided to go on the Atkins diet. The next day, she began to experience an internal sensation of “shakiness” which progressed to a fully-fledged panic attack later that day. She increased her medication dose in an attempt to control the symptoms, but continued to have frequent panic attacks. Over the next four weeks the patient experienced a marked increase in her baseline anxiety level. Although she believed the diet was connected to her symptoms, she did not stop because she had lost over seven kilograms. Eventually, commonsense prevailed – she quit the diet and resumed eating carbohydrates. Her symptoms improved the very same day, and disappeared entirely after several days. According to the report’s author, Dr. Mark J. Ehrenreich from the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry, she continued to do well over the following years.
Given the evidence reported thus far, those with a tendency towards anger or depression, or those suffering from any other psychological condition should steer clear of Ketogenic low-carb diets (non- Ketogenic low-carb diets have so far not been shown to exhibit negative psychological effects in sedentary subjects).
People on ketogenic experience problems ranging from annoying-but-not-life-threatening constipation and foul breath, to the potentially fatal such as cardiac ahrrythmia. How your well-being will shape up on a Ketogenic diet is anyone’s guess; given the numerous downsides of these diets, I cannot in good conscience recommend them to readers. Given that they display no fat loss advantage, there is no reason for me to do so anyway.
Lets look at Most Important Studies of All – and What They Show
While free-living trials are not surprisingly mixed in their findings, tightly controlled metabolic ward studies are nearly unanimous in their conclusions: The final determinant of weight loss or gain is caloric intake. When total calories are held constant, there is no difference in weight loss or gain between diets of varying fat, protein, or carbohydrate content.
