You hear a lot of people these days talking about their keto diet. However, little did you know that the ketogenic diet can be beneficial in more ways than just a diet to help you lose weight. In fact, the ketogenic diet is commonly utilized as a treatment for epilepsy in children. The ketogenic diet consists of a high-fat, low-protein, and low carbohydrate diet. The body will go into ketogenesis, producing ketones, which occurs when that body generates energy from fat when you have low carbohydrate sources. Essentially, the ketogenic diet is a way to put the body into a starvation-like state.
Pyruvate is generated from glycolysis and sent into the citric acid cycle to produce NADH, which is converted to ATP via oxidative phosphorylation under normal conditions. When there is not a sufficient amount of glucose around to make Acetyl- CoA from pyruvate, then acetyl-CoA is formed by oxidizing fatty acids. This build-up of Acetyl-CoA induces ketogenesis.
A recent study looked at the ketogenic diet and any predictors that may control seizures. Their study confirmed the efficacy of the ketogenic diet in patients with refractory epilepsy. Seizure control was also shown to have better odds with a higher fat ratio ketogenic diet, non-fasting induction, and female gender.
Agarwal, N., Arkilo, D., Farooq, O., Gillogly, C., Kavak, K. S., & Weinstock, A. (2017). Ketogenic diet: Predictors of seizure control. SAGE open medicine, 5, 2050312117712887.
Many people question the veto diet for long periods of time. I believe that they may be right in that many people may not be able to sustain this diet for a long time but the outcomes are very beneficial especially when it comes to obesity in this country. When on the veto diet for a long time Hussein et al., (2004) shows that weight loss decreased significantly as well as LDL cholesterol levels and triglyceride levels. All of these benefits will help to lower obesity in our country and help our overall health. The study also went on to show its potential benefits to epilepsy, mood disorders, and other medical conditions that stem from the molecular mechanisms which they are going to further study. As we see more benefits to the veto diet, I believe more information and studies should be done so that we know what negative implication may come from this diet or what benefits it can have on humans in the long run, or for long term conditions.
ReplyDeleteDashti, H. M., Mathew, T. C., Hussein, T., Asfar, S. K., Behbahani, A., Khoursheed, M. A., Al-Sayer, H. M., Bo-Abbas, Y. Y., … Al-Zaid, N. S. (2004). Long-term effects of a ketogenic diet in obese patients. Experimental and clinical cardiology, 9(3), 200-5.