Source: vice.com<\/p>\n
Adhering to the wildly popular keto diet has been correlated with\u00a0added strain on the kidneys\u00a0and\u00a0cardiac arrhythmia, and a\u00a0new, small study\u00a0links going keto with possible consequences on another vital body system: the bones. The study, published in late January in\u00a0Frontiers in Endocrinology<\/i>, is the first to look into whether the high-fat, low-carb diet might also adversely affect bone health.<\/p>\n
The study only involved 30 people, all of whom were about to start vigorous training for upcoming competitions in race walking. Researchers found more significant signs of bone breakdown in the athletes who followed a keto diet for three and a half weeks, compared to those who continued to simply eat their regular, more balanced diet. That doesn\u2019t\u00a0necessarily<\/i>\u00a0mean that eating virtually zero carbs weakens the bones; researchers didn\u2019t examine bone density, and further study is needed. But Louise Burke, one of the study\u2019s lead authors,\u00a0told the\u00a0New York Times<\/i>\u00a0that researchers believe the low availability of carbs on keto may very well affect bone metabolism.<\/p>\n
Doctors and researchers across disciplines have\u00a0long decried the keto diet, especially over the past few years, as its popularity as a quick way to lose weight surged. Following the diet correctly involves getting as much as 90 percent of one\u2019s daily calories from fats, which is meant to send the body into a semi-starvation state known as \u201cketosis.\u201d The idea is that, while in ketosis, ketoers burn through reserved fat stores for energy, rather than churning through readily available carbs. That can (and does) help people drop pounds, but it\u2019s also extremely unsustainable, and appears to come with a whole mess of health issues.<\/p>\n
The only known medical use for keto is treating\u00a0epilepsy in children; it\u2019s also been useful for\u00a0helping regulate blood sugar levels\u00a0in people with diabetes. But just because a diet is doctor-approved for specific situations doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s a good idea to use it \u201coff-label\u201d for weight loss without physician guidance. If\u00a0your goal is to lose fat, there are\u00a0plenty of other ways to do that\u00a0without rotting vital body systems, and almost all of them are\u00a0far less annoying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[139,2971,81,2972],"class_list":["post-4472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weight-loss-gain","tag-keto-diet","tag-links","tag-research","tag-withered-bones"],"yoast_head":"\n