10/20/21

Anatomy & Physiology

Groff

The Ketogenic Diet

The ketogenic diet, better known as the keto diet, is a low carb high fat diet. It has gained  popularity with huge celebrities endorsing it, from the Kardashians to Lebron James. It involves reducing your carbohydrate intake and replacing it with fat intake. This puts your body into ketosis. In ketosis your body starts burning fat at an incredible rate. In this state the liver takes fat and turns it into ketones, which supply the brain with energy. To enter ketosis you need to drastically reduce your carbohydrate intake taking away the body's main source of energy: glucose. You must also reduce your protein intake because protein can turn into glucose if taken in high quantities. You can know if you’ve entered ketosis by either taking a breath test that measures ketones or noticing the symptoms: increased thirst, dry mouth, and decreased appetite.

The foods you should avoid when trying to enter ketosis are foods with high carb: grains, fruits, sugary foods, high carb vegetables, alcohol, and unhealthy fats. Foods you should eat are high fat foods: meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, low carb vegetables, nuts, seeds, and low carb condiments. 

The diet has many benefits but is best known for weight loss. Studies show that it is better for long term weight loss than a low fat diet. The diet may also have benefits against diabetes, cancer, epilepsy, heart disease, parkinsons, polycystic ovary syndrome, brain injuries, and alzheimers. It improves heart and liver health and reduces blood sugar and insulin levels.

The diet may have a lot of benefits but it also has some potential dangers. The diet may give you flu-like symptoms right when your body switches to ketosis this is called the keto flu. The diet may also put stress on your kidneys which could lead to kidney stones. The die can also cause digestive issues due to the lack of fibers, the issues being digestive discomfort and constipation. Another issue the diet could lead to is nutrient deficiencies due to restrictions on foods like fruits and grains which provide you with vitamins and minerals.

The ketogenic diet has a huge difference from the USDA dietary guideline. The USDA my plate diet recommends you eat around 30% grains, 30% vegetables, 20% fruits, and 20% proteins. This doesn’t match with the keto diet, which requires very low carbs and high fats, The my plate diet has 80% that is grains, vegetables, and fruits which is heavy carbs and you won’t be able to enter ketosis. To fix this diet to be more like the keto diet it needs more protein and fat filled foods and a huge decrease in fruits, grains, and vegetables.

The diet originated as a treatment for epilepsy. It was provided as an alternative to fasting and had success. A study in France took place in 1911 found that epileptic patients who consumed a low calorie diet with some fasting experienced fewer seizures. The problem was that these diets couldn’t be maintained over time. To solve this problem other doctors began working to try and replicate these results using other methods. A doctor from the Mayo Clinic found that when patients lowered their blood sugar through low carb high fat diets they experienced fewer seizures and created the ketogenic diet to mimic the metabolism that fasting creates.

The fame the keto diet contains is well deserved. The diet provides many health benefits and is best known for weight loss. There are some dangers in using this diet but as long as you consult your doctor and take some supplements it should be safe and helpful. You may struggle at first but once you keep up ketosis there are a plethora of benefits so keep your head high and eat more fat.

Works Cited

Low fat diets are intended to reduce the occurrence of health conditions such as obesity, and heart diseases. Calories from fat sources are cut dramatically and are proven to be the best way to reduce body fat and lower the risks of even cancer. 

Foods that Should be Avoided

The total intake of fats and oils are the main products that shouldn’t be consumed during a low fat diet. This is not to be mistaken for healthy fatty foods such as nuts, avocados, but saturated trans fats. Also, butter, shortening, dips or dressing, sodium, alcoholic beverages, added sugars,  and chocolate should be avoided. 

Foods that Should be Consumed

Low fat diets consist of plant foods (vegetables, fruits, and whole grains), moderate amounts of lean meat, and anima-based foods. This helps in controlling your fat, cholesterol, calories, and carbs. Meat should be consumed in 5-7 ounces a day. 

My Plate VS. Low Fat 

The My Plate diet and Low Fat diet have way more in common than difference. They both preach the idea of rethinking fats. Such as choosing foods that are lower in saturated fats, butter, shortening, baked or steamed foods, skip spreads. Also, both build meals around protein that are naturally low in saturated fat, skinless chicken, lean meat, and seafood. Portioning food is encouraged in both meals to insure control over certain foods. For example, both diets average at having ½ a cup of vegetables on your plate, and smaller portions for fruits. These 2 diets are both effective for weight loss. They are completely compatible. 

https://www.webmd.com/women/reducing-dietary-fat
“Are You Making Every Bite Count?” MyPlate, https://www.myplate.gov/.

Morrissey (the Smiths’ lead singer) has had a history of advocating for animal rights. He’s expressed these views through his music (eg, the album Meat is Murder) and in interviews. In June of 2018, he revealed that he only eats bread, potatoes, pasta and nuts. “I refuse to eat anything that had a mother”, he explained. Whether or not this is true would have to be determined by scrutiny, because some types of bread contain milk and eggs. When a potato grows, seeds and tubers grow with it, so it’s arguably true that every potato is a mother because it produces offspring at birth. Home-made pasta contains eggs (sometimes Barilla pasta does too), and in the same interview Morrissey said “I'm absolutely hopeless when I'm handed a menu in a restaurant.” Morrissey, surprisingly, does not seem to have elaborated much on the subject.

Grains (Pasta and Bread)

The USDA Guidelines for Americans puts bread (unless it’s 100% whole-wheat) and pasta under the category of refined grains. “Healthy dietary patterns include whole grains and limit the intake of refined grains. At least half of total grains should be whole grains” is what the document states. Bread is a refined grain with high amounts of sodium, but Morrissey would probably benefit by consuming a greater amount of 100% whole-wheat bread than white bread because it has more nutrients. 

    Pasta, like bread, is a food that is not usually served by itself. It often also has cheese, vegetables, and/or meat. This is common so people consume the recommended intake of protein, dairy, vitamins, saturated fats, and sodium. The USDA often refers to pasta as a “mixed dish” because of the assumption that it’ll be eaten with other foods, so it’s difficult to judge where pasta stands on its own. However, it is a refined grain (rich with sodium) with high amounts of folic acid - which would only help Morrissey if he got pregnant.

Potatoes

Morrissey did not specify if he also eats sweet potatoes. If he does, sweet and white potatoes - both of which provide potassium -  would be his only source of vegetables. The USDA seems to recommend all vegetables, as long as they aren’t mixed with too much butter and salt, or in fried form (eg, potato chips). They would recommend 7.5 cups of sweet potatoes per week and 8 cups of white potatoes per week. 

Nuts

    USDA describes nuts as “important sources of iron, zinc, protein, choline, and long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids.” Protein foods and oils are two of the core elements of a healthy diet, and nuts are sources of these two areas. Water chestnuts are a source of starchy vegetables. Unsalted nuts are also nutrient rich, and it’s recommended that he consumes 5 ounces per week. From what I’ve gathered, nuts seem to be the healthiest part of Morrissey’s diet.

Conclusion

    Morrissey’s diet covers all core food groups of a recommended diet except for fruits and dairy. Because of this, Morrissey’s diet be would terrible for an infant. Morrissey is like most Americans when it comes to his undercomsumption of fruits and dairy, and the only source he has of vitamin D is the sun. He’s also probably calcium deficient.

    Can Morrissey live off this diet? Sort of, because he is at risk for type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis, hypertension, and lots of fatal cancers (due to lack of vitamin D). According to the National Library of Medicine, calcium deficiency can lead to “hypertension, arteriosclerosis, diabetes mellitus, neurodegenerative diseases, malignancy, and degenerative joint disease”, and these diseases are common in old age (Morrissey is in his 60’s). 

Sources:

https://www.tremr.com/Fiona-Dodwell/this-is-morrissey-an-interview

https://www.peta.org/living/food/is-bread-vegan/

https://www.garden.eco/how-do-potatoes-reproduce

Exactly one potato has calories, protein, fiber, vitamin C, vitamin B6, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, niacin, potassium, and folate. Potatoes are heavily packed with many different nutrients that the human body needs like vitamins and minerals and since they are low in calories and have very low fat, potatoes are very good as a weight loss diet because you can eat a bunch of nutritious potatoes without all the fat. An example of this comes from Andrew flinders Taylor who ate nothing but potatoes for almost a year and went from 334 pounds to a whopping 117 pounds the main reason why he did this was to stop his food addiction which this diet helped him with. Potatoes are also rich in compounds like flavonoids, carotenoids, and phenolic acids. these compounds act as antioxidants in the body by neutralizing potentially harmful molecules known as free radicals that can give the risk of chronic diseases like heart diseases, diabetes, and chronic cancer. along with that potatoes contains a special starch called resistant starch which doesn’t get broken down and fully absorbed in the body but is eaten by the bacteria in the intestines as a source of nutrients. Scientists have linked this starch to many health benefits including reducing insulin resistance which helps improve blood sugar levels.

 now that you know most of the benefits of a potato-only diet but there have to be some consequences to a potato only otherwise everyone would use it unless they hate potatoes. The example That I have given for the potato-only diet is Andrew Taylor while he did do a potato-only diet for almost a year he had to take extra nutrients like b12 supplements. Another issue with this is If you stick with one particular potato and everyone eats the same potato widespread then you could have a potential crop failure like the potato blight in Ireland in the 1840s.Should you do an only potato diet? Most likely not because eating only potatoes and nothing else will definitely get bland eventually and you will have a terrible time but out of most only one type of food diet a potato only diet is one of the more sustainable ones out there