While some healthcare professionals swear by the keto diet, recommending it to patients for a number of reasons, others fear that it can put a person’s health at risk. According to a new analysis published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the high-fat, low-carb diet appears to be beneficial for patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) if they eat plenty of heart-healthy foods. But there are also other ways that CVD patients can experience the potential benefits of ketone therapy—ways that don’t involve following the keto diet at all.
Ketone bodies produced by the liver, the authors explained, can help CVD patients by providing additional energy to multiple organs. These bodies also appear to have a positive impact on blood pressure, body weight, blood sugar and cholesterol. While the keto diet is the most well-known way to experience these benefits, there are also other options such as ingesting ketone salts or ketone esters.
“We found that data from experimental and human studies suggest ketone bodies exert protective effects on patients with heart disease,” senior author B. Daan Westenbrink, MD, PhD, a cardiologist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, said in a statement. “While the keto diet has become increasingly popular, there are concerns about untoward effects on the heart. However, administration of ketones may be an alternative to a keto diet as a means of elevating ketone bodies for their protective effects.”
The authors did note that there is much more work to be done in this area.
“With numerous pathways to achieve ketosis, ketone bodies have potential clinical implications that require further study,” Westenbrink said. “Further exploration of therapeutic approaches to harness the beneficial effects of ketosis are necessary. I believe in the coming years we will have a much better grasp on whether ketone bodies can be optimized and used in the treatment and prevention of heart disease.”
The full analysis from Westenbrink and colleagues is available here.
Back in January, cardiologist Robert J. Ostfeld, MD, MSc, detailed why he views the keto diet as “a mistake.” Click here to read more about his perspective.
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.