This is a forum copy of the transcript for the Dr. Davis video at:
Video library: Is the Ketogenic Diet Dangerous?
and also on the
Undoctored Blog: Is
the ketogenic diet dangerous?
Comments about this specific video are welcome on this thread.
For why this is here, and comments about transcripts generally, see this revised Reply
in an earlier transcript thread.
Is the Ketogenic Diet Dangerous?
Doctor William Davis here, author of the Wheat Belly
and Undoctored books. I’d like to raise, once again,
this contentious question: is the ketogenic diet dangerous?
And I raise this now, again, because more and more people are coming
to me, and are indeed having health problems long-term, not near-term,
but long term.
Now we know, with confidence, that a long-term ketogenic diet has bad effects.
We know that because there have been thousands of kids, who
were put on very strict ketogenic diets, over years, to suppress intractable
seizures — which is a bad problem — intractable seizures.
Put the children on these diets — there’s about a 50% reduction in
seizure episodes, which is really great, right? But what happens to these kids on
long-term ketogenic diet?
- They stop growing. Now, you’re not growing. You
don’t have to worry about that. But it suggests that there is something
fundamentally wrong, or missing in the ketogenic diet.
- These kids develop osteopenia and osteoporosis. These are kids — not
supposed to have osteoporosis at that age.
- They develop a huge increase in kidney stones, both oxalate and urate
kidney stones.
There’s an up-front pleasant collection of metabolic improvements on a
ketogenic diet: a rise in HDL, reduction in triglycerides, reduction
of insulin resistance, reduction of small LDL particles, reduction in
blood pressure, reduction in fatty liver.
But after many months to years, all that reverses. HDL goes down.
Triglycerides go back up. Insulin resistance goes back up.
Blood pressure goes back up. And, constipation, diverticular
disease, and risk for colon cancer goes way up (long-term)
You know, we saw this before. We saw this in people who followed
the Atkins Diet, because just like the ketogenic diet, the
Atkins Diet does not purposefully help you replace prebiotic
fibers. And that is one of the core issues that accounts for a
lot of the adverse effects of ketosis, prolonged ketosis:
the failure to take in sufficient quantities of prebiotic
fibers; that is, fibers that nourish bowel flora.
So we know with confidence also, that a prolonged ketosis
(ketogenic diet) changes bowel flora. There are some good
things, and a lot of bad things. For instance, there’s a
reduction in bifidobacteria and a proliferation of
E. coli — a marked increase in
E. coli populations.
We also know that species diversity, the collection, the
number of species of bowel flora in the gastro-intestinal
tract, is markedly diminished, when you follow a
ketogenic diet. Species diversity is a very powerful
marker for health. Healthier people always have more
species diversity than unhealthy people. Unhealthy
people have narrow species diversity, with proliferation
of unhealthy species like E. coli and
Campylobacter and Shigella and others.
So, ketosis is fine, and physiologic, and natural, for brief
periods.
I draw a parallel to the stress response.
The stress response is a normal physiologic response, right?
There’s a sense of danger or excitement. What if you’re a
stress junkie, or an adrenaline junkie, and you want stress
’round the clock, 24×7, or your exposed to some awful
life stress, like financial problems, someone close to you
is ill or dies, or maybe you’re taking of an elderly parent
who’s got dementia — chronic stress?. What happens in
chronic stress: it’s horrible for
health, right? Cancer rates go way up; depression, heart
disease, way up; all kinds of other conditions; the risks
increase dramatically. Stress is normal and physiologic.
Chronic stress is very harmful. Same thing here. Short-term
ketosis is normal natural and physiological. Long-term
ketosis is very destructive for health.
Now some people have argued that the beta-hydroxybutyrate
ketone of ketosis is all you need for bowel health —
you don’t need the prebiotic fiber, you don’t need
all those bacteria, and E. coli proliferation…
Well, there’s no way you can justify that kind of an
argument, especially in light of all the evidence coming to
us in the microbiome.
The microbiome is the key here. We must make efforts to
cultivate healthy bowel flora, because modern people have
screwed up their bowel flora dramatically. So don’t add to
the effect by being chronically ketotic.
Use it near-term if you want to lose weight, reverse fatty liver,
become non-diabetic, but then add the prebi…
or even better, maybe address prebiotic fibers, just like
we do in Wheat Belly Total Health and Undoctored — we do
that from the start.
So there’s so much now that relies on healthy microbiome.
Don’t let diet ruin it for you.
