Nourish Those Bones!

‘The keto diet should not be a long-term plan,’ Nutritionist and founder of Nosh Detox, Geeta Sidhu-Robb tells Metro.co.uk. ‘While the upside of this plan is that people end up eating healthier fats, less sugar and see their insulin levels mellow, it can often mean that people become reliant on saturated animal fats in meat. ‘The diet will see its best rewards when implemented between one and two weeks at a time. It certainly shouldn’t be a long duration diet method.’

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/11/keto-diet-make-bones-weaker-increase-risk-injury-12219315/?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

‘The keto diet should not be a long-term plan,’ Nutritionist and founder of Nosh Detox, Geeta Sidhu-Robb tells Metro.co.uk. ‘While the upside of this plan is that people end up eating healthier fats, less sugar and see their insulin levels mellow, it can often mean that people become reliant on saturated animal fats in meat. ‘The diet will see its best rewards when implemented between one and two weeks at a time. It certainly shouldn’t be a long duration diet method.’

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/11/keto-diet-make-bones-weaker-increase-risk-injury-12219315/?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

"We believe that the keto diet may affect bone metabolism due to the downstream effects of low-carbohydrate availability on certain hormones, along with other factors."
"[More study is needed.]"
Louise Burke, head, sports nutrition, Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra

Our data reveal novel and robust evidence of acute and likely negative effects on the bone modeling/remodeling process in elite athletes after a short-term ketogenic LCHF diet, including increased marker of resorption (at rest and post-exercise) and decreased formation (at rest and across exercise), with only partial recovery of these effects following acute restoration of CHO availability. 

Long-term effects of such alterations remain unknown, but may be detrimental to bone mineral density (BMD) and bone strength, with major consequences to health and performance. While ketogenic diets are of interest to athletes due to their ability to induce substantial shifts in substrate metabolism, increasing the contribution of fat-based fuels during exercise (11), we have previously reported the downside of a concomitantly greater oxygen cost and reduced performance of sustained high-intensity endurance exercise (19). The current study identifies further complexity in the interaction between the ketogenic diet and exercise with respect to markers of bone modeling/remodeling, in which catabolic processes are augmented and anabolic processes are reduced.

The LCHF diet is also popular within the general community for its purported health benefits, including rapid weight loss and improved glycemic control (22). However, data from animal studies (12, 13) demonstrate that chronic LCHF diets are associated with impaired bone growth, reduced bone mineral content, compromised mechanical properties, and slower fracture healing. Furthermore, increased bone loss has been reported in children with intractable epilepsy placed on a medically supervised LCHF diet for 6 months (14, 15). In contrast, adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus who self-selected to consume a LCHF diet for 2 years experienced no changes in spinal BMD in comparison to a “usual care” group (22). One explanation for these divergent outcomes involves interactions of the LCHF diet with the level of habitual contractile activity. Indeed in mice, a LCHF diet negated the positive benefits of exercise on BMD in trabecular bone (16), while in children with epilepsy, the rate of bone loss was greater in the more active patients (14). Therefore, the hormonal response to exercise undertaken with low CHO availability was of particular interest in our study.

Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, ACT, Australia, Frontiers in Endocrinology journal

Ketoacidosis is one of the warning symptoms with the onset of undiagnosed Type 1 (formerly called Juvenile Diabetes) diabetes. It occurs when insulin is no longer being produced to turn carbohydrates in the diet into energy and the body begins to starve, producing blood acids called ketones, turning to stored body fat for energy; the tell-tale sign of a milky breath resulting indicating ketoacidosis. Low carbohydrate, high-fat diets (ketogenic) is a diet designed to replicate this effect, and control it, for the purpose of losing weight.

A newly published study has examined the outcomes of a keto diet and what it has revealed is that the diet, based on an analysis of a short-term study, results in critical bone loss, raising concerns with respect to potential long-term health effects from such diet plans. Keto diets focus on low-carbohydrate, high-fat regimens using up to 90 percent of daily calories, extracted from fat. If such diets are scrupulously followed they reconfigure the manner in which bodies fuel themselves.

Since carbohydrates are metabolized rapidly the body turns to them for energy first irrespective of whether the carbohydrates emanate from diets or from sources stored in our muscles and livers. With a low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet, stored carbohydrates are quickly used and bodies begin to focus on extracting energy from fat resources. The liver creates substances known as ketone bodies that can be converted into energy as part of the process of breaking down the fat, initially.

People wanting to lose weight, control blood sugar or regulate their health find ketogenic diets appealing. In the expectation that such diets will improve athletic performance some athletes also follow the diet, since fat used as fuel, is slow-burning and long-lasting. There are some studies that suggest low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets may change bone metabolism as evidenced by children with epilepsy whose use of the keto diet to control their condition tend also to experience low bone density.

Some blood markers related to bone health are seen in athletes who go for a day or two without carbohydrates.

The new study, published in Frontiers in Endocrinology, saw researchers in Australia  assembling a group of willing-to-experiment, world-class racewalkers. Thirty athletes about to begin an intense training session for upcoming world championships and related competitions, agreed to take part in the three-week study. Two groups were established, one willing to try a keto diet, the other to act as controls. One half began a keto diet, the others continued their regular high-carbohydrate diet.

Researchers drew blood from the test subjects before and after workouts establishing bone health and other markers of health and fitness. As an active tissue, bone is constantly breaking down slightly, then remodelling in response to demands placed on them. Researchers checked levels of specific substances in the athletes' blood samples known to be associated with bone breakdown, rebuilding and overall metabolism.

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The athletes set off on three-and-a-half weeks of intense training while consuming mostly fat or mostly carbohydrates, following which researchers once more drew blood and rechecked markers of bone health. Differences were found, with the markers of bone breakdown higher among the athletes on the keto diet than at the onset of the study, while those indicating bone formation and overall metabolism were lower. Similar markets were unchanged in the high-carb diet athletes.

Those on the ketogenic diet demonstrated symptoms of impaired bone health. Louise Burke, head of sports nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport, one of the lead authors of the new study, said it was unclear how bones might have been affected by the diets in question. There was no follow-up of the athletes involved in the study beyond the study's three-and-a-half weeks' duration.