One of the most common nutrition questions is keto, or the ketogenic diet, safe long-term. Prof Grant Schofield and Dr Caryn Zinn answer this question here.

What we do know is this – low-carbohydrate diets, including ketogenic diets, improve people’s health, and every known risk factor for their health, in the right direction. The glucose and the insulin in your blood will decrease. The overall picture of fats in your blood will improve, inflammatory markers will improve and your weight will generally go down.

 

 Prof Grant Schofield and Dr Caryn Zinn answer the Top 10 Nutrition Questions. This article covers question 10: Is keto safe? View questions 1-9 here.

 

We have no reason, given the intermediate markers, to believe that keto diets are unsafe. Every facet points to them being safe.

 

To prove that low-carb and keto diets are safe in the long-term, we would need a study, a randomised trial, which would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The study would need to follow people who are randomised to keto diets or other diets, over decades, and to follow them for what we call clinical endpoints, which are usually death or having a heart attack. That study won’t get done.

We have no reason, given the intermediate markers, to believe that keto diets are unsafe. Every facet points to them being safe.

Somehow, in the scientific argument against keto, there seems to be a burden of proof on people who show improvements in health, to further show that those are helpful in the long-term. On that basis, no drug in the history of modern pharmaceuticals would ever have been approved because they never follow people for 10 or 20 years.

 

Should you be in nutritional ketosis all the time?

At this stage, keto is a safe and effective way to manage your health. Should people be in nutritional ketosis and on a ketogenic diet 100% of the time? I doubt it. I doubt people can sustain that, and furthermore I don’t think they need to be.

 

Is Keto safe as treatment of some neurological conditions?

The keto diets are effective and safe for the treatment of some neurological conditions – keto tends to be neuro-protective. There seems to be some quite good mechanisms linking high levels of circulating ketones to certain brain conditions, such as brain cancer, Parkinson’s, dementia, concussion, Alzheimer’s and epilepsy.

The keto diet was established in the 1920s to manage children who had intractable epilepsy, which means they could not be effectively treated with medication alone. The ketogenic diet has been very effective to manage some of these conditions.

 

You can have bulletproof coffee, bacon and keto bars for breakfast, lunch and dinner and be keto. […] that is no way to do keto.

 

A well-formulated keto diet

You can do keto badly and you can do keto well. You can have bulletproof coffee, bacon and keto bars for breakfast, lunch and dinner and be keto. And that, according to our opinion, is no way to do keto.

Keto should be based on whole, unprocessed foods. We talk about a well-formulated keto diet, including a range of vegetables, good quality meats, fish, chicken, eggs, dairy, nuts and seeds – the very foods that give us lots of micronutrients and phytochemicals. So, when you’re doing keto in a well-formulated way, I wouldn’t worry at all about long-term.

 


Learn more

Take your nutrition knowledge to the next level. Prof Grant Schofield and Dr Caryn Zinn are the lead instructors in the Certificate in Advanced Nutrition

The Certificate in Advanced Nutrition:

  • is designed to give you a university-level education in nutrition at a fraction of the cost.
  • gives you a solid foundation in the science and practice of nutrition including low-carbohydrate and keto diets, fasting, weight loss, gut health and allergies.

Learn more here.

 

Read more

Question 1: How much read meat should I eat?

Question 2: Can I eat bread if I’m on a low-carb or keto diet?

Question 3: What is a healthy diet?

Question 4: Should I avoid dairy products

Question 5: Is eating plants only healthier than eating meat and plants?

Question 6: Do calories matter for weight loss?

Question 7: Do stress and sleep affect weight loss?

Question 8: Dietary guidelines – what’s wrong with them?

Question 9: Does alcohol contain a lot sugar?