Is the keto-diet diabetes friendly?

There’s no doubt that one of the best ways to manage type 2 diabetes is through healthy eating and counting carbohydrates. One newly popular diet that researchers are investigating is the keto diet and its effectiveness in managing obesity and diabetes. The keto diet, which has been promoted by celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Lebron James, provides 99% of calories from fat and only 1% from carbohydrates.

A new Yale University study conducted on mice shows that a keto diet tricks the body into burning fat. When the body’s glucose level is lowered due to the diet’s low carbohydrate content, the body acts as if it’s in starvation mode and burns fat instead of carbohydrates. This reduces both diabetes risk and inflammation and can even improve metabolism.

But, according to the study, the health benefits of the keto diet only last so long. When the mice continued the diet for longer than one week, they ended up consuming more fat than they could burn and ended up developing obesity and diabetes.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the keto diet has no benefits when it comes to diabetes management – especially when it’s done in brief stints. With the latest findings, researchers are encouraging a larger study on humans who are overweight and prediabetic with the goal of determining the ideal “dose.”

To learn more about this study, visit Science Daily.