- Hi, Dr. Joel Kahn
at the Kahn Center For Cardiac Longevity,
a cardiologist in suburban Detroit.
I'm pleased to talk to you for a couple of minutes
about the topic, can a meat heavy ketogenic diet
be healthy long term?
Very concerning, but let's talk about terms
because a few years ago, you didn't open every website
and every magazine and read about ketogenic diet,
particularly with Hollywood stars and such.
You can go back decades and find
some important medical data that if you're dealing
with a child that has refractory epilepsy,
before there was medication or even
after when there wasn't a good response,
that putting a child on a water fast sometimes
improved their seizures, but it wasn't very well tolerated,
obviously, by growing children.
Then people tried a low-carb, high-fat diet to induce
the creation of chemicals in the body called ketone bodies
that can be an alternative fuel to the brain
in addition to glucose.
There was a response in 30 to 40% of children,
but these medical reports indicated many,
many potential side effects including some scary reports
of death during ketogenic diets,
cardiac issues during ketogenic diets and such.
But somehow, in the last five to 10 years,
this medical therapy with an unnatural diet
that has no really long term use in any healthy community
in the world has become the darling of Silicone Valley,
become the darling of Hollywood,
become the darling of athletes; Lebron James,
Halle Barry, the Kardashians, Hugh Jackman all come to mind.
Well, we have an independent way to asses this
that's outside of my own opinions which is
the US News and World Report put together a list every year
of the top diets for health and other conditions
that you're trying to strive for,
reversal of heart disease and diabetes and such.
And the ketogenic friendly diets like Whole 30,
Paleo and the Ketogenic diet itself are always
at the very bottom of the list of recommended diets,
with one exception.
US News and Word Report considers the Ketogenic Diet
to be a rapid weight loss diet.
There are many other rapid weight loss diets,
some unhealthy like influenza and chemotherapy,
but there are some healthy versions like a whole food,
plant based, no salt, oil, sugar diet.
You can use various kinds of fasting mimicking diets.
There's many ways to induce a more rapid weight loss,
but Ketogenic is one.
What about long term?
We're gonna bring the carbohydrates down,
so there go whole grains, there go legumes,
good bye dairy, which is fine by me, of course.
We're gonna get rid of most fruits,
maybe leave some leafy greens in,
and we're gonna bring the fat content very high.
That might be with meats and cheeses,
might be with butters and such,
and that's gonna induce ketosis or ketogenic diet.
Well, the data is concerning that long term,
this may be a very unhealthy program.
And this is a topic that's not being addressed
by proponents in the medical community, dietician community,
and certainly the lay community about the Ketogenic diet.
There are, as I count now, nearly 10 published studies,
these are scientific studies.
These are not just on a blog on the internet
that are in what we call peer review journals.
In total, these studies involve more
than one million subjects who answered information
on their diet and if their diet fit into a low-carb,
high-fat program, LCHF, they were followed.
And there was an important finding in the studies
and these are what are called association studies,
but a low-carb, high-fat diet was associated
with an increase risk of early mortality.
Let's say that again, early mortality, early death.
In following people that describe their diet,
and these were healthy people at the beginning,
increase risk of death.
There's one study from the Harvard School of Public Health
that particularly concerns me as a cardiologist.
Over 4,000 people have had a heart attack.
They answer food questionnaires.
Their diet is described as a low-carb, high-fat diet,
and they follow these people and there's
an increased risk of dying, post heart attack,
compared to people that describe their diet as high-carb,
whole-food, plant based diets,
the right diet to eat for a heart patient.
Then we get into some data, finally, from Dr. Valter Longo.
If you don't know Dr. Valter L-O-N-G-O
of the University of Southern California,
one of the world's leading scientists, biochemist,
nutritionist, an incredible guy who's been pumping out data,
he calls any diet that jacks up animal protein
and animal fat, it will trigger aging pathways.
Many of these pathways he was involved in elucidating
a pathway called the IGF-1 pathway, the mTOR pathway.
It's not just guess work.
There actually is basic biochemistry, epidemiology,
not many randomized clinical studies.
There's also data from what we call Centenarian Studies.
Show me in the blue zones if you know what that is
and if you don't, please read about it,
where people are following long term ketogenic diets
other than in periods of famine and starvation.
Overall, do you wanna do a meat heavy ketogenic diet?
Everybody respond with me, N-O, no.
It's associated with an increased risk of early mortality.
We presume it's associated with
an increased risk of heart disease.
There isn't enough data to declare that,
except in these post heart attack groups.
And it's bad for the environment
and it's certainly bad for the animals.
Stick with whole food, plant diets.
My favorite for 42 years of my life.
Bye, bye.