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What is the keto diet?

Some diets are important because of the skillful scientific basis for them. This also happened with the keto diet (ketogenic diet), which has gained high popularity points in recent years. The very name of the diet comes from the medical term "ketone bodies" - these are products of fat metabolism, acetone and its derivatives. The liver is involved in the synthesis of ketone bodies, spending fat stores in cases of need to increase energy costs.

Normally, in a healthy organism, ketone bodies are present in the blood in extremely low concentrations (up to 2 percent). But an increased content of ketone bodies in the blood or urine indicates dangerous pathological conditions, or rather, that the excretory system, designed to cleanse the body of harmful metabolic products, does not cope with its duties, for example, in case of renal failure (ketone bodies in urine - ketonuria ) or with carbohydrate starvation (ketone bodies in the blood - ketonemia). A similar high content of ketone bodies also accompanies fasting processes, metabolic disorders in the form of diabetes mellitus, excessive prolonged physical effort.

At first glance, it may seem that the body does not need an increased content of ketone bodies, since all filters work to remove them from the body (usually a high concentration of ketone bodies is noticed in the composition of sweat and urine - the smell of acetone). But it turned out that the brain and muscles can use ketone bodies during periods of carbohydrate starvation as a source of energy.

Nutritional interest in ketone bodies has arisen due to the fact that a side effect of high levels of ketone bodies in the blood has been a decrease in body weight. And in order to stimulate the body to lose weight, according to the laws of metabolism, it is necessary to artificially create conditions for carbohydrate starvation in the body against the background of consumption of fats, from which the liver will begin to synthesize ketone bodies, which in turn will stimulate brain activity (mental abilities will not be affected), and muscles there will be a source of energy.

People who want to lose weight, but do not like to exercise physically, restrain themselves in the consumption of various goodies, the keto diet as a way to lose weight was to their taste, because its main principle: eat everything fat, but do not eat carbohydrates. This means that you can’t exclude from the diet butter, fatty meat, animal fats, high-percentage dairy products (sour cream, cream, cheese), nuts and seeds, eggs. But fruits and vegetables rich in carbohydrates will have to be excluded, as well as bread, cereals, pasta and legumes.

Any good diet has side effects, and the ketogenic diet is no exception. The loss of carbohydrate-rich fruits and vegetables from the diet will lead to digestive disorders (nausea, constipation), vitamin deficiencies (skin, hair, nails, teeth will suffer), and a decrease in vitality (low blood pressure, rapid fatigue, stress instability). And no matter how the body tries to utilize intermediate metabolic products, those that are harmful in abundance (and excess ketone bodies are harmful) will still cause significant damage to health, and losing weight is just a temporary phenomenon with a ketogenic diet.

Not doing physical activity, not paying attention to the balance in nutrition, not attaching importance to endocrine disorders to reduce body weight - you will not get rid of excess weight.