The keto diet may be more than just a health fad.
According to one study, an ultra-low-carb diet can significantly lower blood sugar levels in prediabetic people.
The ketogenic diet involves drastically reducing your carbohydrate intake and replacing it with foods high in fat and protein.
Advocates claim it can cause a host of health benefits, from keeping your mind sharp to improving heart health.
While many of the claims have turned out to be false or unprovable, the latest study indicates that diet can prevent type 2 diabetes in those most at risk.
The researchers looked at 150 people ages 40 to 70 whose blood sugar level ranged between prediabetic and diabetic levels and who were not taking medication for the condition.
One group ate their normal diet and was followed for six months. The rest ate the equivalent of just 16 grams of carbohydrates per month, the same as a slice of bread.
People with diabetes or prediabetes who ate no more than 60 mg per day of carbohydrates for six months saw lower hemoglobin A1c levels than people who followed their normal diets.
At the end of the study, those in the low-carb group saw a 0.26% decrease in hemoglobin A1c, or the amount of glucose (sugar) in their blood.
Switching to an ultra-low-carb diet could be enough to help prediabetics avoid worsening A1c levels, potentially avoiding a diagnosis of diabetes.
The group that maintained their normal diets saw their A1c levels drop by only 0.10 to 0.02 percent.
People in the low-carb group saw their A1c levels drop 0.23 percent more than people in the group who maintained their normal diets.
Dr. Kirsten Dorans, lead author and assistant professor of epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine I call these findings are “modest but clinically relevant.”
“The key message is that a low-carbohydrate diet, if maintained, could be a useful approach to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes, although more research is needed.”
The findings have been published in JAMA Network Open magazine.
Approximately 37 million Americans have diabetes, and type 2 diabetes accounts for 90 percent of those cases.
Meanwhile, approximately 96 million American adults have prediabetes.
Risk factors for developing diabetes include being overweight, having a family history of diabetes, not leading an active lifestyle, and consuming a lot of alcohol and fat.
People over the age of 35 and those who are African American, American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, or Pacific Islander have a predisposition to type 2 diabetes.
People living with diabetes are motivated by healthcare professionals to maintain a low-carbohydrate diet, which can help diabetics better control their blood sugar, decrease medication needs, and reduce the risk of diabetic complications, such as heart disease, heart disease, Chronic kidney and nerve damage.
The American Diabetes Association officially recommends that people with diabetes and prediabetes follow low-carbohydrate, low-glycemic, high-protein diets to help control blood sugar.
The study doesn’t say that diet alone can control a person’s blood glucose levels, but Dr. Dorans said it opens the door for more research.
Dr Dorans said: “We already know that a low-carb diet is a dietary approach used among people who have type 2 diabetes, but there is not as much evidence about the effects of this diet on blood sugar in people with prediabetes. “.
“Future work could be done to see if this dietary approach may be an alternative approach for the prevention of type 2 diabetes,” he added.
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