Keto Diet Weight Loss: Hidden Long-Term Health Risks Revealed
Researchers from University of Utah Health have published new findings in Science Advances that examine the long-term effects of the ketogenic diet. The results raise fresh questions about whether the diet is safe or effective for improving metabolic health over extended periods.Even though the ketogenic diet was first developed as a treatment for epilepsy, it has become widely popular in recent years for weight loss and for managing conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. In this study, scientists used mice to explore how the diet affects metabolism over time, with results pointing to potentially harmful changes in how the body handles fats and carbohydrates.
The ketogenic diet is built around extremely high fat intake and very limited carbohydrates. It was originally introduced to help control seizures in people with epilepsy. By sharply reducing carbohydrates, the diet pushes the body into a state known as ketosis, in which fat is broken down into ketone bodies that serve as an alternative fuel for the brain.This metabolic shift helps stabilize brain activity and reduce seizures,similar to the effects of fasting. While the diet has since been promoted for weight loss and metabolic health, much of the research to date has focused on short-term effects rather than long-term outcomes.
“We’ve seen short-term studies and those just looking at weight, but not really any studies looking at what happens over the longer term or with other facets of metabolic health,” said Molly Gallop, PhD, now assistant professor of anatomy and physiology at Earlham College, who led the study as a postdoctoral fellow in nutrition and integrative physiology at U of U Health.
How the Long-Term Study Was Conducted
To address this gap, Gallop and her team designed a long-term experiment using adult male and female mice.The animals were assigned to one of four diets: a high-fat Western diet, a low-fat high-carbohydrate diet, a traditional ketogenic diet where nearly all calories came from fat, and a protein-matched low-fat diet. The mice were allowed to eat freely for nine months or longer.
Over the course of the study, researchers tracked changes in body weight and