Obesity has reached pandemic levels. Over 30% of Americans are fat, and over 300,000 people die yearly from obesity-related diseases. (1) Obesity, while a severe medical condition in and of itself, raises the risk of other disorders such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and neurodegenerative disease. (2) As a result, obesity is a significant risk factor on a patient’s record.
Obesity treatment is obvious: lose weight. Even a 5% drop in bodyweight can significantly improve an obese person’s prognosis. (1) However, finding long-term weight loss methods still needs to be completed.
The high-fat ketogenic diet, which promotes weight reduction through some processes and can thereby treat type 2 diabetes, a metabolic condition frequently associated with obesity, is one potential path.
This article examines the obesity problem, its relationship to diabetes, and how the ketogenic diet can assist.
Obesity Defined
Obesity is defined as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of more than 30.
- Underweight: less than 18.5
- Average weight: 18.5 to 24.9
- Overweight: 25 to 29.9
- Obese: Over 30
- Morbidly obese: Over 40
o calculate your BMI, follow the calculations below:
- Imperial: [weight (lb) / height (in) / size (in)] x 703
- Metric: [weight (kg) / height (cm) / height (cm)] x 10,000
Obesity is characterized by excessive fat buildup. This stored fat, known as adipose tissue, is how people keep long-term energy and isn’t always unhealthy. However, with obesity, too much power is stored, and body fat levels reach harmful levels.
Obesity, however, does not have a single cause. It’s a complex condition in which nutrition, exercise, stress, sleep, socioeconomic status, and genetics all have a part. Certain FTO gene variations, for example, appear to be connected to excessive weight gain. (1)
Obesity is not lethal in and of itself, but it does predispose a person to other risky illnesses. Obesity increases one’s chances of heart disease, high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, sleep apnea, type 2 diabetes, and other unfavorable illnesses and side effects.
Diabesity: The Obesity Diabetes Link
Obesity affects more than one-third of the American population. Many people are diabetes or prediabetic. Because of the severity of this tendency, researchers developed the word “diabesity” to characterize it. (4)
The Standard American Diet (SAD) is primarily to blame for the diabetes pandemic. SAD is notoriously heavy in sugar, and excessive sugar consumption has been linked to obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes. (5)
The path from sugar to diabetes is logical. A high-sugar diet raises blood sugar levels, which increases insulin levels. This blood sugar and insulin dysregulation eventually leads to insulin resistance, which is the inability of muscle and liver cells to store blood sugar effectively even when insulin is present. As a result, blood sugar levels remain elevated; the pancreas produces more insulin, insulin resistance increases, and diabetes advances. (6) High insulin levels also promote excess fat accumulation, leading to obesity.
Controlling blood sugar and insulin levels is critical for reversing this trend. This is where the ketogenic diet comes into play.
How the Ketogenic Diet Helps with Obesity
The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet intended to produce a fat-burning metabolic state known as ketosis. During ketosis, the body stops using sugar/glucose for energy and instead depends on fatty acids and ketones/ketone bodies. (This is accomplished by drastically reducing carbohydrate intake, forcing the body to burn fat and convert it to ketone for energy.)
As a result of shifting energy gears, less glucose is required to perform regular operations. (7) The only way to enter and stay in ketosis (and accomplish keto weight loss) is to maintain moderately high ketone levels by eating a diet high in healthy fats, moderate in protein, and low in carbs.
Contrary to common opinion, adhering to the keto food plan entails more than cheeseburgers and Bulletproof Coffee. It consists of meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, and healthy oils like coconut, olive, and MCT, as well as avoiding high-carb items like sweets and processed and whole grains. The most crucial aspect is that your daily net carbohydrate consumption stays under 20 grams.
The ketogenic diet has a distinct effect on metabolism than the Standard American Diet. The ketogenic diet lowers blood sugar and insulin levels by reducing carbohydrates. Unlike SAD, which supports fat accumulation, the ketogenic diet encourages the body to utilize fats stored inside and fat from daily food consumption.
As a result, low-carb diets are helpful for weight loss, particularly in obese and diabetic populations. An increasing body of research supports this. Consider the following:
- In obese adults, just 24 weeks of keto eating improved blood lipids and encouraged weight loss. (8)
- A low-carb diet helped overweight teenagers lose more weight than a low-fat diet. (9)
- Compared to a high-carb diet, a ketogenic diet enhanced energy expenditure and lowered hunger hormones in those trying to lose weight. (10)
Let’s go through why the ketogenic diet helps obese people lose weight:
Insulin function
Carbohydrate elevates blood sugar and insulin levels to the greatest of any macronutrient. As a result, limiting carbohydrate consumption on a ketogenic weight-loss diet (eating keto-friendly foods and fewer calories than needed for homeostasis) improves these indicators in obese and diabetic populations. That it does. Blood sugar levels decline, insulin levels fall, and insulin function stabilizes. This is why the ketogenic diet is an effective type 2 diabetes therapy. Virta Health conducted one-year controlled research in which 60 percent of patients on a monitored ketogenic diet corrected their diabetes. The average amount of weight lost was 30.4 pounds. (11)
Appetite management
A high-fat, ketogenic diet may help to decrease overeating (and consequent weight gain) through a variety of mechanisms (12), including:
- Lower ghrelin levels, the primary hunger hormone
- A decrease in neuropeptideY, a brain substance that stimulates hunger.
- Increased cholecystokinin (CCK) production, a hormone that induces fullness by binding to the hypothalamus.
Leptin function
The hormone leptin controls hunger and body weight by attaching to brain receptors. Simply put, leptin is a hormone that regulates fullness. Obesity is connected to high amounts of leptin and high insulin levels. (13) High leptin levels, in particular, promote leptin resistance. When a person is leptin resistant, they have difficulties controlling their food intake. High-carbohydrate diets raise circulating leptin levels and aggravate leptin resistance. In contrast, the ketogenic diet appears to improve leptin sensitivity. (12)
The Bottom Line
Obesity and type 2 diabetes rates are growing in lockstep, which is no coincidence. Both illnesses are caused by similar metabolic problems: high blood sugar, excessive insulin, and insulin resistance.
According to research, the keto diet plan can be beneficial. The ketogenic diet’s rigorous carb restriction has several health benefits, including restoring insulin sensitivity, increasing leptin function, lowering hunger hormones, and stimulating weight reduction (water weight in the short term/first week) and weight loss over time), and even reverse type 2 diabetes.
Is it possible to put a stop to the obesity epidemic? Perhaps it can if the medical profession, dietitians, and dieters accept the ketogenic diet.
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