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Keto diet gets a lot of hate but it could help almost 3 million people worldwide
Most diets pale in comparison to the One Diet To Rule Them All �the Mediterranean diet �but scientists have just discovered how the much-maligned keto diet might help people with a relatively common autoimmune disease.�
Diets are only good if you can keep them up, and some of them are useless even then. The Mediterranean diet is good for people with diabetes, the DASH eating plan is best for lowering blood pressure, and going vegan may give you your best shot of living longer. So, whats good about keto? Well, it could have huge health benefits for people suffering from a very specific condition.
Scientists uncover keto diets power to calm overactive immune systems
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. Symptoms include bladder and bowel dysfunction, cognitive impairment, and dizziness.
Treatments can slow the disease, but there isnt a cure. Nor is diet a common way to alleviate the symptoms of MS �until now, possibly.
- ON THE OTHER HAND: The Keto diet could harm your friendly gut bacteria and raise cholesterol
Scientists at UC San Francisco have discovered that the keto diet could reduce the symptoms of MS.
They tested a keto-like diet on mice with a mouse version of MS, and found they produced more of a particular ketone body a chemical compound in their guts, which resulted in them having less severe disease.
What was really exciting was finding that we could protect these mice from inflammatory disease just by putting them on a diet that we supplemented with these compounds, News Medical quotes Peter Turnbaugh, one of the researchers, as saying.
“The big question now is how much of this will translate into actual patients. But I think these results provide hope for the development of a more tolerable alternative to helping those people than asking them to stick to a challenging restrictive diet.”
How does the keto diet interact with multiple sclerosis?
The keto in the keto diet’s name stands for ketogenic. It describes a diet that encourages your body into ketosis, a metabolic state that happens when the body burns fat for energy instead of glucose.
Over time, ketogenic has become a term for a low-carb diet. The idea is that your body gets more of its calories from protein and fat and less from carbohydrates.
Cut back on carbs like bread, sugar, and pastries; load up on high-fat, high-protein foods like eggs, lean meat, nuts, cheese, and certain vegetables.
What happens is that the body breaks down fat instead of carbohydrates, when it needs fuel. In the process, it produces compounds called ketone bodies, which provide energy for cells to burn and can also change the immune system.
It remains to be seen whether or not this study using a diet ketogenic in nature, on mice with a version of multiple sclerosis �translates to humans. But if it does, we may see new treatments for MS coming quite soon, with supplements rather than medications.
Multiple sclerosis afflicts an estimated 2.9 million people worldwide, all of which could benefit from sticking to a low-carb, high-fat diet like the ketogenic diet, if this research is anything to go by.
- BEST OF BOTH WORLDS: You can lose weight naturally by eating healthy carbohydrates
