The health benefits of keto
In recent years, many people have become aware that the keto (ketogenic) diet can be a way to lose a significant amount of weight in a relatively short period. However, keto is not solely about weight loss; in fact, many individuals choose this lifestyle for the numerous other health benefits it can offer. Did you know that, for certain medical conditions like Diabetes type 2, keto can even lead to medication-free management?
What Health Benefits Can Keto Offer You?
There are too many to list them all; that’s how fantastic this lifestyle can be! In this article, you’ll discover some of the most common health benefits often experienced with a keto diet. Below are common issues where ketogenic eating can make a significant difference.
Table of Contents:
- Diabetes (all types)
- Oral Health Issues
- Skin Problems
- Damaged Hair
- Allergies
- Digestive Issues
- Edema (Swelling)
- Rheumatism
- Fatigue
- Mental Health Challenges
- Cholesterol Levels
- High Blood Pressure
Diabetes
Type 1 Diabetes
With a keto diet, most people with type 1 diabetes can maintain much more stable blood sugar levels. This can significantly reduce their need for medication and the risk of hypoglycemia. You can learn more about it in this article.
Type 2 Diabetes
Nearly all individuals with type 2 diabetes who adopt a keto diet can even become entirely medication-free! How does that work? You can read about it in this article.
Improved Oral Health
In a keto lifestyle, you don’t consume added sugars and also significantly reduce your intake of natural sugars, which is beneficial for your dental health! This reduces the risk of cavities, decreases plaque buildup, and minimizes the formation of tartar.
Improved skin
It’s well-known that diet can affect the skin. Many people experience more acne, for example, after consuming more chocolate.
Hormone balance also plays a significant role in skin health. This is evident in teenagers, women around their menstrual cycle, and women going through menopause. Hormonal imbalances can directly impact the skin.
It’s not surprising that a keto diet can lead to better skin in various ways. Keto involves eating purer foods without harmful additives, and it has a positive effect on hormone balance.
Don’t be alarmed if it initially appears worse
When you first start transitioning to keto, you may experience an initial worsening of skin issues. This is entirely logical, so don’t worry or be afraid that it’s permanent!
Diet has a significant impact on hormone balance. Your body needs time to adjust to the new fuel source and may initially be disrupted and searching for equilibrium. Often, this stabilizes within a few weeks (provided you don’t cheat), and you’ll notice healthier and more radiant skin.
Your body will also start clearing out all unhealthy components (cells), and they need to come out somehow. Impurities often come to the surface of the skin, making them temporarily more visible. However, this is a positive sign! It means your body is detoxifying, and you’ll be free of them in the not-too-distant future!
Damaged Hair?
If you’re dealing with dull, brittle, lifeless, and damaged hair, keto can also make a real difference!
This is partially related to your hormone balance, much like with your skin. The more stable your hormone balance is, the cleaner your cells will be. Cleaner cells mean fewer damaged components. When your core cells are healthier, so is your hair.
Another reason for healthier hair on keto is your diet. Since a keto diet places a strong emphasis on vegetables, you’re getting a lot of vitamins and minerals that all contribute to a beautiful head of hair. Hair problems often stem from a deficiency in vitamins and minerals, so load up on those veggies!
Allergies
An allergy is essentially an exaggerated response of your immune system to a non-harmful substance. A keto diet can make a difference here because your immune system becomes much stronger and healthier with the right nutrition.
Your body also has far fewer interference factors to deal with. Since your body receives much less junk (which it then has to break down and eliminate), it can become much more efficient in focusing on what is actually happening in the body.
Our immune system often has to work hard to process all the negative influences from the environment and build resistance against them. When you reduce the burden on your body from the triggers of unhealthy food, your immune system can much better assess what things it should actually respond to.
Digestive Problems
A bloated stomach, constipation, diarrhea, IBS, and many more digestive problems—there are many people who suffer from these issues. A keto diet can also make a world of difference in these cases. Almost all the people I know who had such complaints say that they have never experienced so much peace and regularity in their stomach and bowel movements since they started eating keto.
All digestive problems are related to bowel movements. Bowel movements are the undigested remnants left over from our food, everything you’ve eaten that your body can’t do anything with. When I say “can’t do anything with,” I mean everything that can’t be stored or used by your body.
It’s unavoidable that there will always be undigested remnants; your body simply can’t digest everything you eat. But the type of food you consume has a significant impact on this.
Eat Yourself Back to Health
With an unhealthy diet, your intestines have a tough time processing everything your body doesn’t need. Because a keto diet primarily consists of pure and unprocessed foods, it provides a lot of relief to your intestines. Again, the rule applies: the less strain you put on your intestines, the more efficiently they can do their job.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could completely get rid of your digestive problems or at least experience a significant reduction in symptoms just by adjusting your diet? I’d sign up for that!
Edema (Fluid Retention)
Edema is the accumulation of fluids in the body caused by your body’s inability to properly drain the fluid. Normally, veins remove this fluid, but if this is not possible due to reduced circulation, for example, painful fluid retention can occur.
These fluid accumulations typically appear in the feet, ankles, or legs, but they can also occur in other places such as the abdomen, arms, or around the lungs. The underlying cause of this is often related to veins and blood vessels.
Fortunately, it is becoming increasingly recognized in the medical world (thankfully) that sugar is the cause of numerous health problems. Nowadays, more and more doctors are attributing problems with blood pressure and circulation to sugar rather than salt. Since a keto diet significantly reduces sugar intake, it also has positive effects on your veins, blood pressure, and circulation. The better your circulation and the more space there is in your veins, the fewer edema symptoms you will experience.
*In case of suspected edema, it is always advisable to consult a specialist. This is to prevent or rule out more serious health problems (such as heart problems).
Rheumatism
Rheumatism is not a specific condition but rather an umbrella term for over 100 different conditions affecting the joints, muscles, and tendons. The cause of these conditions is an immune system dysregulation, leading to chronic inflammation. The most common symptoms include stiffness and pain in the muscles and joints.
Increasingly, medical research is indicating that sugars are the main source of inflammation. So, by significantly reducing sugar intake, symptoms can rapidly decrease. Once again, this aligns perfectly with the keto diet. Why choose pain-relieving medication and impose limitations on your physical activity when you can potentially resolve these issues through dietary changes?
How wonderful would it be if you could play with your (grand)children again without pain?
Fatigue
Feeling lethargic, lacking energy, poor sleep, and waking up tired – we’ve all experienced those days. However, there are increasing numbers of people who experience these symptoms chronically. Can you imagine the impact this has on your daily life?
Increased energy is one of the first things you often hear from people who switch to a keto lifestyle. Why is that? The answer, when you think about it, is simple and logical. Your body has a much easier time because it has to process much less “junk,” leaving more energy available, and that’s one of the reasons.
But the biggest reason is that your body always has an ample supply of fuel (fat) in storage. So, your body can effortlessly and endlessly tap into this energy source, reducing the likelihood that it will signal you to refuel.
It’s worth noting that your body needs to make the transition first. During this transition, you might experience the opposite effect, but this is really short-lived! After that, it gets so much better than ever before!
Mental Health
A foggy mind, concentration problems, autism, epilepsy, Parkinson’s – these are just a few examples of mental disruptions that can drastically affect daily life. A ketogenic diet can truly make a big difference in these cases.
Normally, on a carb-rich diet, your brain primarily uses sugars as fuel to control everything in your body. However, on a keto diet, your body produces ketones, which the brain can use as an alternative fuel source. This is a much cleaner fuel, allowing your brain to react much more sharply and fine-tune its communication with everything in your body.
Unfortunately, doctors often recommend a ketogenic diet only in severe cases where medication is not effective or not effective enough. Fortunately, more and more doctors and organizations are beginning to realize that dietary adjustments can offer so many more benefits than medication (medication is essentially a form of “band-aiding” while diet is a major trigger).
Cholesterol
There are indeed many people with unhealthy cholesterol levels. Many people mistakenly believe that it’s due to consuming fats, but this is far from the truth. When people hear about a ketogenic diet consisting of 75% fats, their first question is often, “But isn’t that bad for your cholesterol?”
Recent research has increasingly shown that the cholesterol we eat has little influence on the cholesterol levels in our bodies. Our bodies produce cholesterol on their own and ensure that it’s balanced with the cholesterol we obtain from our diet. In simple terms, your body produces less cholesterol when you consume more through your diet. It’s now well-established that cholesterol itself is not the problem (the cause), but rather a consequence of the damage done by sugars to the body.
Where does it go wrong?
The major downside is that most standard cholesterol tests do not examine the exact types of cholesterol, so doctors often inform patients that their cholesterol levels are not good, without considering the ratios. The issue is not with the overall cholesterol level but with the ratios of HDL, LDL, and triglycerides.
With a keto lifestyle, it’s common to see cholesterol values increase in the beginning as the body is still adapting to the right ratios and regulation. There’s no need to panic in such cases; give your body time to regain its health. You didn’t become unhealthy in just one month. Learn more about healthy fats and their impact on cholesterol here.
Most people, after 6 months to a year of transitioning to a ketogenic lifestyle, have cholesterol ratios that are much better than before they made the switch.
High Blood Pressure
Salt is unfortunately still the most commonly cited cause of high blood pressure. However, this is outdated and not accurate. In fact, salt is incredibly important for your body, especially in a ketogenic lifestyle.
In most cases of high blood pressure, the root cause is insulin resistance. When you consume a high-carbohydrate diet, your body has to produce more insulin, but because it can’t process this insulin efficiently (due to insulin resistance), your body retains more water and salt. The excess fluid ends up in your blood vessels, which is the cause of high blood pressure. There’s more fluid in the blood vessels than they can handle, resulting in elevated pressure.
Since a ketogenic diet involves significantly lower carbohydrate intake, this issue is often resolved within a few days to weeks, and many people can become medication-free within a few weeks in many cases. Learn more about high blood pressure and ketogenic eating here.
Choose Health, Choose Keto!
It’s truly remarkable what you can achieve with your diet. Medications are often prescribed to alleviate symptoms, but they don’t address the root cause. This means you’ll likely have to take medication as a “band-aid” for the rest of your life, which is a shame. Aside from filling your body with “junk” and not addressing the actual cause, these medications often come with side effects.
A ketogenic lifestyle can offer significant improvements in your health and a reduction in symptoms for all the conditions mentioned above. For some conditions, following a ketogenic diet can even lead to a complete cure. How amazing is that?!
Many people do not (sufficiently) realize how decisive the food you consume is for your overall health. And they certainly do not expect that it can be so “simple” to overcome problems you have been struggling with for years. Most people notice a significant improvement and reduction in their symptoms within a few days. What are you waiting for?