The Truth About Keto Diets

I cannot give you the information that’s just popular today. I need to give you information that I am confident is correct 5, 10 or 100 years from now because it has been tried and tested over and over again.

In Ayurvedic Medicine or any other type of ancient medicine, they always followed a balanced diet. They had protein, carbohydrates and fat. No person who has access to carbohydrates or protein should knowingly then just eliminate those and have fat instead.

Most people don’t even look at the science and just go on whatever is popular in the media!

HOW THE POPULARITY BEGAN

A few good pieces of research came out on keto-based diets. For example, a study was conducted where they fed rats a diet which constituted of 90% fat and the rest was carbohydrates and protein. It was shown that this diet killed cancer cells. This is because cancer cells are tumours that actually use sugar as one of the main energy sources. We’re talking about tumour-based cancers. For blood-based cancers, this would not apply.

Does that actually apply for all humans without cancer? No.

Are there other diets for those with tumour-based cancers? Absolutely.

YOU HAVE TO KNOW HOW

A keto-based diet can be good in the short-term but I certainly would never recommend it for long-term use (i.e. longer than 3 weeks).

DANGERS OF KETO DIETS:

1. Decreases Metabolism

It has been shown that a keto-based diet can actually decrease your metabolism in the long run because it can lower thyroid hormones.

This is because a keto-based diet is a stress to the body, so your adrenal glands (HPA Axis) are actually telling your body to produce more adrenaline and in turn produce more cortisol.

The spike in cortisol falsely tells your body you have more energy than you actually do so this is why some people feel very “energetic” when following a keto diet.

Is this healthy? No, because you will run your body down in the long run.

2. It is a survival-based diet

A keto-based diet is a survival diet. When you were lacking fruits and vegetables in the wild, your body would go into ketosis. It is a survival mode in which your body would tap into fat stores that you’ve built up during a season in which food was plentiful.

3. Causes inflammation

People on high fat (keto) diets are actually creating larger amounts of inflammation in their intestines because they’re not feeding the microbiome. The fibre that you get from fruit and vegetables (carbohydrates) isn’t there so now you’re not able to replenish, build and grow your microbiome.

We know that our microbiome is the centre of our immune system but the problem is that the inflammation will also trigger certain autoimmune-based issues.

YOU SHOULD EAT A BALANCED DIET

Please be aware that your diet really should be balanced. You need all of your macronutrients: carbohydrates, protein and fat. Your ratios can differ based on the person.

For example, a natural thin person (vata/ectomorph body type) can have more carbohydrates because they are not going to produce as much insulin as their body naturally runs better on carbohydrates.

On the other end of the spectrum, a kapha/endomorph body type should have mostly vegetables and less high glycaemic fruits and starches because their body runs better on fat as a fuel.

You have to be careful not just with keto diets but with all of the hype surrounding following a specific diet. You have to look at the underlying root causes as to why things work and why the body is always trying to create equilibrium.