Low Carb Diet - The Truth and the Lies

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When the body enters into ketosis, the liver will be tasked to start breaking down body fat or fat stored in the liver into fatty acids and ketone bodies. It is these ketone bodies that almost all cells in your body can use a replacement for glucose in the blood. The excess ketones that are produce by the liver can’t be turned back into fat and are actually excreted trough your urine and breath. This incidentally is what we normally refer too as “ketosis breath” where you start to smell like acetone from nail polish removers.

The main fight for the low-carb diet advocates is trying to lobby the fact that ketosis is a normal state of being and isn’t dangerous as some people have once said. Modern medicine has largely been consistent in its view that ketosis only occurs as a emergency response to famine and that it isn’t sustainable for a long period without damage to the body. Those against the low-carb diet movement state that it puts a dangerous load on the liver and can cause unwanted wasting of muscle tissue around your body. The unfortunate part is that there have been many comprehensive studies to suggest that ketosis is no more burdensome to the body than our normal insulin driven carbohydrate diets are. Despite these studies the vast majority of the medial and nutritional science community still labels the low-carb diets that promote ketosis as dangerous.

The Science

Although there has been many testimonials about the effectiveness of low-carb diets this still does not constitute a scientific or properly done case to case study to show that a low-carb diet is both beneficial to slimming while still safe for your body in the long term. With the small studies that were done both in the 1970s and 1980s, even the results could be interpreted in different ways by both sides of the table.

The most relevant and comprehensive studies were only carried out in the late 1990s and 2000s. The effectiveness of the slimming diet was measured and as expected showed marked benefits for those seeking to loss weight. What is less obvious is the long term impact of a low-carb diet over time. Since the research done is quite new, the medical profession and nutritionists can use that data until it ages to represent a true long term view of the low-carb diet’s affect.

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