Real ketogenic diet studies: is it safe to make your ketogenic diet permanent?

Would you like to stick to a ketogenic diet for a long time without any risk for your health? Do you want to be sure that ketosis is safe, as well as effective? You require some real studies from real scientists and not only bloggers. I’m here to bring you some of the latest ketogenic diet studies that examined the effects of ketogenic diets and ketosis itself on your body.

A few years ago there were not many ketogenic diet studies about low carb diets. But now the situation has changed. People all over the world choose ketogenic diets to lose weight. They like the amazing benefits and results of ketosis and prefer to make it their lifestyle. Why not? I would like to make it my own lifestyle too. There is no need for a large quantity of food anymore, I feel and look good and I have plenty of energy for all my creative projects. Would you like to make ketogenic diet your lifestyle too?

Most have answered “yes, but…” Which means you would like keto to follow your steps all day long. But who says it is safe? The diet is unusual; you have been eating totally vice versa all your life. You need some proof to make it your permanent diet, right? Here is the time when I pull a rabbit out of a hat. Don’t look around, I mean real ketogenic diet studies.

I would like to start from a recent study, published in September 2015. This study examined the effects of ketogenic, Western and standard chow control diets on fat deposition and serum health-related biomarkers. I will not bother you with all those numbers. Let’s skip to the results. During a 6-week study period on rats scientists came to a conclusion that a ketogenic diet is favorable for fat loss and improvements in serum health-related biomarkers compared to Western and even hypocaloric amounts of standard chow.

In the next study in 2004 scientists have proved the long-term effect of a ketogenic diet in obese patients. The duration of study was 24 weeks with 83 obese patients. As a result the weight and body mass index decreased significantly. I’m sure patients were very happy to take a part in such study. As it has been proved that ketogenic diets is safe for a longer period of time as it was announced before. There were also many positive side effects of the study, such as decreased triglycerides level, LDL cholesterol and blood glucose, and increased levels of HDL cholesterol (the good kind).

But in a recent 22-week study in 2014 scientists found out that ketogenic diet caused dyslipidemia, a pro-inflammatory state, signs of hepatic steatosis, glucose intolerance and a reduction in beta and alpha cell mass, without weight loss in mice. I know it sounds very serious, but let’s not forget the response to ketosis in man and mouse is pretty different. It could explain why insulin sensitivity is improved in man whilst it decreased in mice on a ketogenic diet. Also, for a mouse 22 weeks are like several years to a human beings. Ketogenic diets have not been studied on human for several years yet. Those two reasons could help us to sleep calm.

As a conclusion to this article I would like to link to another (the last one) study from 2014. Scientists claim that you can safely stick to a ketogenic diet for 6-12 months. Do not panic, not just yet please. They speak about traditional ketogenic diet. To make your diet permanent I would advise you to switch it to a cycling ketogenic diet after you have achieved your normal weight.