Study: Long Term High-fat Ketogenic Diet is Healthy and Safe

A German study published November 11, 2017, in the journal Clinical Nutrition, shows no long-term negative effects for those following a high-fat, low-carb, moderate-protein ketogenic diet. Ketogenic dieting has been used successfully to reverse Alzheimer’s and reduce epileptic seizures in children. Some have even used extreme ketogenic dieting for inducing remission from their cancers. The ketogenic diet was developed in the 1920s at Johns Hopkins hospital to stop seizures in children who did not respond to anti-seizure drugs. The diet fell out of favor in recent years due to the negative press on saturated fats, and fears over the long-term consequences of eating large amounts of saturated fats. Ketogenic diets focus on high amounts of fat in the diet, including saturated fats, along with very restricted amounts of carbohydrates, in order to create ketones that bypass insulin resistance in brain cells and energize their metabolic functions in lieu of glucose. This has proven efficacious for other central nervous systems problems in addition to Alzheimer’s and epilepsy. The past doubts regarding the effects of using a ketogenic diet long term as one's main diet were centered on the “official” advice to avoid saturated fats because they supposedly raised cholesterol levels, which they claim increases the risk of cardiovascular heart disease. This current study proves that such fears are unfounded, and that a high-fat, low-carb, moderate-protein diet can safely be followed as a lifestyle choice, and not simply as a short-term therapeutic diet.