Keto diet only works for a week before problem that can cause obesity and diabetes appears, study on mice shows

Research from Yale University suggests benefits of eating a high-fat, low-carb diet may be time-limited

After a week on the diet, the body starts replenishing its stores of fat faster than they can be burned, the study indicates. A follow-up human study is needed

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The keto diet, or ketogenic diet, requires eating high-fat, low-carbohydrate foods such as bacon. Starving the body of carbohydrates makes it burn fat, but research suggests the body reacts by building up stores of fat again. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 6:00pm, 30 Jan 2020Updated: 1:50pm, 14 Dec 2020

If the start of the new year led you to go on the ketogenic diet in an effort to lose weight, a new study suggests you may have been on it a little too long.

Researchers at Yale University in the United States have conducted a study on mice to review the effects of the keto diet. They discovered that beyond a week, the benefits begin to cease.

The study was recently published in Nature Metabolism and results indicate that over a limited time period, consuming a high-fat, low-carb diet can possibly offer health benefits to humans, Yale News reports. They include lowering the risk of diabetes and inflammation.

The diet’s positive effects are related to cells called gamma delta T-cells, immune cells that protect the tissue and lower the risk of diabetes and inflammation. However, the same cells are also tied to negative effects of the keto diet.

A selection of food that can be eaten on the high-fat, low-carb Keto diet. Photo: Shutterstock

Vishwa Deep Dixit, lead author of the study, who is a professor of comparative medicine and immunology at the Yale School of Medicine, says the keto diet tricks the body into burning fat. The body acts as if it’s in starvation mode when the low consumption of carbohydrates causes glucose levels to drop.

Despite the body not actually being in starvation mode, it begins burning fat instead of carbohydrates. That leads to the release of ketone bodies, which are an alternative source of fuel. As ketone bodies burn in the body, gamma delta T-cells expand throughout.

Keto diet only works for a week before problem that can cause obesity and diabetes appears, study on mice shows

Research from Yale University suggests benefits of eating a high-fat, low-carb diet may be time-limited After a week on the diet, the body starts replenishing its stores of fat faster than they can be burned, the study indicates. A follow-up human study is needed

Research from Yale University suggests benefits of eating a high-fat, low-carb diet may be time-limited

After a week on the diet, the body starts replenishing its stores of fat faster than they can be burned, the study indicates. A follow-up human study is needed