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The steadily increasing number of studies shows that ketosis is the answer to a long list of health problems, starting with obesity and ending with cancer.
Ketosis, or in other words the ketogenic diet, is an eating method that shifts your metabolism from burning carbohydrates to burning fats.
What is the ketogenic diet
Such a diet requires that 50% to 70% of your caloric intake be healthy fats, such as:
- coconut oil
- butter from cows fed fresh grass
- eggs from free-range or barn hens
- avocado
- raw nuts and seeds
- flax and flaxseed oil
- Intake of carbohydrates (bread, cookies, sweets, and sweet types of fruit) is minimal. Your body thus, to produce energy instead of sugars
- burns fats.
In other words, there is too little sugar in your body and therefore the body is forced to switch to obtaining energy from fats.
What happens in the body during the ketogenic diet
During the state of ketosis, the body produces ketones which it makes from fats in the liver. The ultimate goal of a properly conducted ketogenic diet is to switch the body into a fat-burning state.
However, this is achieved not by overall deprivation and starving, but by creating a deficiency of only sugars.
Our bodies are extremely adaptable. They process what you put into them. When you supply them with fats and remove sugars, they begin to use ketones as the main source of energy.
Health benefits of the ketogenic diet
Reducing sugar intake is the simplest way to lose weight. On this diet their intake is kept at a very low level.
By contrast, attention is paid to adequate protein intake and increased intake of fats — more precisely, healthy fats, not just any fats.
In this gentle way we support the body to remember how to use fat as the primary energy source. For that, it needs to produce ketones from stored fat.
Specifically, the benefits of this diet are shown in these areas:
1. Fights cancer
Cancer loves sugar. It essentially directly feeds cancer cells and supports their growth.
Cancer cells, on the other hand, cannot burn fat. Therefore, if we deny them sugar supply, it slows their growth and subsequently leads to their dying off.
Healthy cells have no problem burning fat. In this way healthy cells are saved, but cancerous ones perish.
A study published in Redox Biology pointed precisely to these anti-cancer effects of the ketogenic diet, specifically for colon, prostate, and stomach cancer.
In this report Dr. Eugene Fine from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine hypothesizes that the ketogenic diet stops cancer by changing the energy processes in cancer cells.
As he further states, preliminary data from patients with advanced stages of cancer point to the safety and effectiveness of this diet in suppressing insulin.
The degree of ketosis, but not calorie deficiency, in them correlated with disease regression.
2. Protection of the brain and nervous system
A low-carbohydrate, high-healthy-fat diet also helps with other, mainly neurological, diseases.
Research published in the journal Behavioral Pharmacology found that the ketogenic diet is also effective in minimizing the symptoms of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
In one study, patients with Parkinson’s who followed this diet recorded up to a 43% improvement in their condition after just the first month.
Studies recommend the ketogenic diet even for autism. Many autistic people also have epileptic seizures as a result of excessive stimulation of brain cells.
Research showed that most children with autism and ADHD (attention disorders) experienced an improvement after the ketogenic diet as early as after 6 months.
Very promising results are also shown by the use of this diet for other nervous system health problems such as migraines, headaches, depression, anxiety states, or increased nervous tension.
