I have to write a paper for my nutrition class here at school and I wanted to do it on the ketogenic diet since it’s been a popular topic in the media as of late. My professor is convinced that it’s evil and will alter your blood pH and put you in a coma. I would like to show her that this is not the case and this is why I need your help. If any of you could point me toward some scientific studies that show ketogenic diets to be safe, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.
Jotun
Pick up Lyle McDonald’s “The Ketogenic Diet.” It is the definitive book on keto plans, w. every detail you could imagine. Other authors include Dr. Mauro DiPasquale, Dr. Robert Atkins and Dan Duchaine.
You are going to have a hard time finding any studies on ketogenic diets. In general the scientific comunity does not agree with them i.e. high fat = bad. What I say you should do is use anecdotal and personal experience to back up your thesis. Furthermore you can try to show that your professor is dead wrong. What she is referring to is ketoneacidosis, not ketosis. Or perhaps she is thinking of ketosis as a result of diabetes. I can’t remember the exact mechanism that leads to ketoneacidosis, but I think it only occurs in diabetics (not sure). Also ketosis is a result of diabetes not vice versa. Ketoneacidosis and diabetic ketosis are dangerous but nearly impossible to induce from a ketogenic diet. Your best angle would be from the insulin point of view. It’s not hard to find studies that show insulin causes fat storage. Thers’s also some studies that show that diabetic ketosis uses ketones and not glucose as fuel, because of the lack of insulin. Hope this helps.
The first thing you will need to do is learn as much as possible about the physiology and biochemistry of ketosis. There are several good sites online concerning low carb dieting and they can give you a foundation of what is occuring and where you can find more info.
There is research concerning ketotic diets and general low carbohydrate diets, but you will have to search for them on the journal search engines, such as Medline or Pubmed.
In response to HyaSynth who said there aren’t many studies on Keto diets, consider that they’ve been around for a while and were used to treat Epilepsy. There are some very long term case studies done on epileptics that showed no long term problems. Try a search on medline for Ketogenic Diets and Epilepsy. Hope this helps.