In a few words: You have to be ruthless to lose weight, is the ketogenic diet effective? The pitfalls on the road to weight loss

Niu Niu: Xiaobing, I heard that a UP host on Bilibili passed away, probably due to diabetic ketoacidosis.

Binghai: Huh? How could this happen? The mortality rate of this disease is not high. As long as you cooperate with the treatment, unfortunate things can usually be avoided.

Niu Niu: But it seems that he doesn’t have the conditions for treatment, which is a pity.

Ice Sea: Long-term low blood sugar and low insulin levels in the body, also known as ketosis, can be life-threatening if severe.

Niu Niu: But I tried a ketogenic diet to lose weight before, and it was quite effective. I wonder if there are similar risks?

Binghai: If you search online, you will find many recipes for the ketogenic diet. Compared with ordinary recipes, its core is to eat more fat and protein, and very little or no staple food. So what we are discussing is actually the risks of not eating staple food for a long time.

Niu Niu: Yes, my ketogenic diet requires me to eat more meat and not eat the usual staple foods.

Binghai: If it’s effective, why didn’t you stick with it?

Niu Niu: Because I wasn’t tough enough on myself and I found a bad smell in my mouth, I backed off, but I heard that this is a normal side effect.

Binghai: You were right not to stick with it. If you adopt this diet for a long time, not only will your mouth have bad breath, but you may also suffer from dehydration, high blood sugar, and shortness of breath. Previously, a 21-year-old guy in Hangzhou was sent to the ICU because he ate fruit instead of staple food for a long time, which eventually induced diabetic ketoacidosis. But he was luckier than the UP host, and he was rescued. So you should not be so hard on yourself.

Niu Niu: Alas, the dead are gone. But I know that not eating staple food for a long time like the ketogenic diet is harmful, so is it okay to eat less staple food?

Binghai: It depends on how much, and sometimes it varies from person to person. For example, in 2015, a female college student in Wuhan insisted on drinking only one bowl of porridge every day, and replaced the rest with fruit. She lost 5 kilograms in less than a week. But later she was also sent to the hospital due to ketosis.

Niu Niu: I don’t agree. You only explained the harm of not eating staple foods for a long time. But you see, people can still lose 5 kilograms in a week. Can you try it in the short term?

Binghai: In the short term, it does have a certain effect. However, from a scientific perspective, if you don’t eat meat at all, not only will the weight loss effect be poor, but there may also be many side effects, and it will be difficult to stick to it. If you really have to eat meat every day and not eat staple foods, you will give up, right?

Niu Niu: Well, not eating staple foods may not be sustainable for a long time. But many people on the Internet say that the ketogenic diet is very useful, and they say it is their personal experience. Are they all false?

Binghai: I didn’t say that, but personal experience cannot replace scientific testing. For example, many people have also found through personal experience that steam sauna and sweat suits can help lose weight. The latter is still promoting their weight loss effects and cases on Taobao. But these only reduce water in a very short time, and are actually not helpful for real weight loss. This is similar to the method of wrapping with plastic wrap to lose weight many years ago. You will lose weight when you weigh yourself in two or three days. But it will be exposed after a long time. There are many similar "weight loss secrets" on the Internet.

Niu Niu: I have a question. A friend of mine wore a sweat-inducing suit and lost ten kilograms in a year, which is not a small amount.

Binghai: You should note that those who wear sweat-inducing clothes are originally aiming to lose weight, so they usually pay attention to their diet and exercise deliberately. It is not surprising that they lose weight in the end. So individual experience is often difficult to help us find the truth.

Niu Niu: So how can we find out the truth? What exactly is the scientific test you are talking about?

Binghai: At least a comparison should be made. Try to make sure that the two groups are the same in other conditions. For example, in the paper (A randomized trial of a low-carbohydrate diet vs orlistat plus a low-fat diet for weight loss), researchers divided 146 volunteers into two groups, a ketogenic diet and a low-fat diet, for comparison. However, no significant differences were found in the long-term experimental results. Therefore, the evidence that the ketogenic diet can help lose weight is not yet sufficient.

Niu Niu: Well, losing weight is really a headache. Every time I try a method, I look at the scale for a few days and find that the weight has gone down a lot, but it rebounds again not long after.

Binghai: Well, it is easy to lose weight in a short period of time, but it is difficult to lose weight in a long-term and healthy way. In fact, the ketogenic diet is generally used to treat certain specific diseases and is carried out under the advice of doctors. If you really want to lose weight, there is no need to go to extremes. When faced with a weight loss method that we have never heard of before, we can also verify whether it has scientific basis, instead of looking at the advertisements of merchants or the self-descriptions of users.

Niu Niu: So from the perspective of scientific evidence, today's conclusion is that [not eating staple foods for a long time is harmful to the body, and there is insufficient evidence for the ketogenic diet for long-term weight loss]. What should I do if I encounter a new weight loss method but can't find the scientific basis?

Binghai: Then we can "let the bullet fly for a while". Wait for a year or so. If this method is really effective, there won't be so many people around us who are worried about losing weight. But you also know that a balanced diet is the safest and most time-tested method.

Niu Niu: There are not many people around me who worry about losing weight.

Binghai: Yes, I have one by my side. (Staring~~)

Source: Science Voice