The Keto Diet: Can It Supercharge Your Brain and Body?

Summary

Science Vs: The Keto Diet — Can It Supercharge Your Brain and Body?

Hosted by Spotify Studios, "Science Vs" delves into the science behind trending topics, separating fact from fiction. In the October 10, 2024 episode titled "The Keto Diet: Can It Supercharge Your Brain and Body?", host Wendi Zuckerman explores the multifaceted impacts of the ketogenic (keto) diet on both mental and physical health.

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1. The Keto Diet Phenomenon

Introduction to Keto: Wendi Zuckerman opens the episode by highlighting the widespread popularity of the ketogenic diet, characterized by high fat intake and minimal carbohydrates. She notes its acclaim on social media, with claims ranging from enhanced weight loss to improved athletic performance and mental health benefits.

“People just love it. Wow, this is amazing. This is like a medication, but better.” — Wendi Zuckerman [00:01]

Scientific Endorsement: Neuroscientist Dom D'Agostino underscores the diet’s potential, suggesting its benefits could rival blockbuster medications.

“If a drug did everything that the ketogenic diet did, it would be an enormous blockbuster drug worth billions of dollars.” — Dom D'Agostino [00:55]

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2. Personal Experiments and Initial Experiences

Host and Team Trials: Wendi and producer Caitlin Sorey embark on the keto diet alongside their editor, Blythe Terrell. Their initial enthusiasm quickly wanes as they confront the strict dietary restrictions, eliminating common carbohydrates and embracing high-fat foods like cheese, avocado, and nuts.

“No croissants, no pasta, no cake, no beer. You can't even eat much fruit. It's depressing.” — Wendi Zuckerman [02:10]

Early Challenges: The team shares humorous yet honest struggles, including craving high-carb snacks and adapting to a monotonous fat-centric diet.

“Eating all of this fat can mess around with the fat in your blood, potentially upping your cholesterol。” — Caitlin Sorey [03:25]

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3. Scientific Insights: Keto and Brain Health

Keto’s Origins and Epilepsy Treatment: The keto diet was initially developed in the 1920s to treat epilepsy in children. Dom D'Agostino recounts his discovery of keto’s medical applications while researching seizure treatments.

“I spent two weeks just immersed in reading this research and realized that it was actually real.” — Dom D'Agostino [08:29]

Ketones as Brain Fuel: Cutting carbohydrates forces the body to produce ketones from fat, which the brain can use as an alternative energy source. This metabolic shift is believed to enhance neuronal communication and reduce seizures.

“I basically thought the brain could only use glucose for fuel, so this was completely new to me.” — Dom D'Agostino [09:30]

Mental Health Benefits: Dr. Shobani Sethi from Stanford Medical School explores the diet's potential in improving conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In her study involving 21 participants, over 79% showed significant psychiatric improvements.

“Over 79% of the participants, they had a clinically meaningful psychiatric improvement, according to the scales.” — Shobani Sethi [12:09]

Patient Testimonials: One notable case involved an engineer with schizophrenia who experienced reduced paranoia and hallucinations after adopting the keto diet.

“I would not be here today if it wasn't for keto.” — Patient in Shobani Sethi’s Study [12:31]

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4. Weight Loss and Metabolic Health

Expert Perspective: Professor Louise Burke from Australian Catholic University discusses the keto diet’s effectiveness in weight loss. While some attribute success to metabolic changes or appetite suppression, Burke emphasizes that restricting food variety inherently leads to reduced calorie intake.

“The way that most people lose weight is that they eat fewer calories by restricting the number and range of foods that they can eat.” — Louise Burke [23:12]

Team Observations: The podcast team notes modest weight loss among themselves, attributing it to the elimination of high-calorie, low-nutrient foods.

“We were throwing, like, Doritos in the trash and couldn’t have... low carb treats.” — Caitlin Sorey [23:44]

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5. Athletic Performance: Hype vs. Reality

Elite Athlete Trials: Louise Burke investigates the keto diet’s impact on athletic performance by studying over 20 elite racewalkers. Contrary to popular claims, athletes on the keto diet underperformed compared to their carbohydrate-consuming counterparts.

“Ketogenic diet turned out to be a disaster for the performance of these athletes.” — Louise Burke [25:47]

Oxygen Utilization: Burning fat requires more oxygen than burning carbohydrates, putting keto athletes at a disadvantage during high-endurance events where every percentage counts.

“It's only about a 5% difference. But a 5% difference is really important for an athlete who's working at their limits.” — Louise Burke [26:24]

Research Confirmation: Further studies across various sports echoed similar findings, leading Burke to conclude that ketogenic diets do not enhance athletic performance.

“Ketogenic diets are not beneficial for athletic performance.” — Louise Burke [27:19]

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6. Risks and Side Effects

Health Concerns: The keto diet is associated with potential side effects such as constipation, kidney stones, and altered blood lipid profiles. Although long-term studies indicate no increased heart attack risk, the overall impact remains inconclusive.

Personal Adverse Reactions: Blythe Terrell experienced menstrual irregularities, while her husband Jack developed severe allergic reactions upon reintroducing carbohydrates after a prolonged keto period. These cases highlight the diet’s capacity to disrupt hormonal and immune systems.

“Once Blythe went off the diet, my... period came back very suspicious.” — Caitlin Sorey [28:22]

“When he ate carbs, they were so itchy. He was waking up in the middle of the night and getting into the bath and filling it with oatmeal to soothe his skin.” — Caitlin Sorey [30:52]

Expert Insights: Dom D'Agostino explains that elimination diets like keto can lead to food sensitivities when foods are reintroduced too rapidly.

“Elimination diets, like the ketogenic diet, can cause food reactions if they are quickly reintroduced.” — Dom D'Agostino [32:11]

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7. Final Thoughts and Recommendations

Balanced Perspective: Wendi Zuckerman concludes that while the ketogenic diet offers significant benefits for specific medical conditions like epilepsy and potentially schizophrenia, its effects on healthy individuals and athletes are limited or even detrimental. The diet’s profound impact on the body underscores the importance of consulting healthcare professionals before making drastic dietary changes.

“This diet is changing how your body is working, does open the door to the fact that it could change it for the worse.” — Wendi Zuckerman [33:17]

Cautionary Advice: The podcast advises listeners to approach the keto diet with caution, recognizing both its potential benefits and risks.

“Maybe be a little careful.” — Caitlin Sorey [34:03]

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Conclusion

"The Keto Diet: Can It Supercharge Your Brain and Body?" offers a comprehensive examination of the ketogenic diet, blending personal narratives with scientific research. While keto shows promise in specific therapeutic contexts, its broader applications for cognitive enhancement, weight loss, and athletic performance remain contentious. The episode emphasizes the necessity of evidence-based approaches and professional guidance when considering significant dietary modifications.

For detailed references and further reading, listeners are directed to the show’s transcript available in the episode’s show notes.

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Produced by Caitlin Sorey and Michelle Dang, with contributions from Wendi Zuckerman and the Science Vs team.

Transcript

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Hi, I'm Wendi Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Versus. This is the show that pits facts against a lot of fat. On today's show, the ketogenic diet. This is the diet where you have to eat a bunch of fat and almost no carbs. It's been booming for years now. Online. People just love it. Wow, this is amazing. This is like a medication, but better.

[Dom D'Agostino]

The biggest benefit is cognitive.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Like, I'm more awake. People say that it helps them lose weight, makes them run faster, be stronger. And we're hearing that it might even help with some serious mental health conditions. But it's not just folks on socials that are getting excited about the keto diet. Scientists are as well.

[Dom D'Agostino]

If a drug did everything that the ketogenic diet did, it would be an enormous blockbuster drug worth billions of dollars.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

That's Dom D'Agostino at the University of South Florida. And he didn't start researching diets?

[Dom D'Agostino]

No.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Dom is a neuroscientist, a brain guy, but when he started reading about this weird ketogenic diet, he just got so intrigued that he had to try it. And Dom says that after a couple.

[Dom D'Agostino]

Of weeks, I could go throughout the whole day with a lot of energy, and I could go to work, forget about eating, and bang out a whole day of work. I almost owe my career in some ways. You know, I don't. I don't want to make this sound like a stretch of the imagination, but I'm not sure that I would be able to achieve the productivity that I achieved to be able to get tenure, because I pushed myself in ways I never thought I would be able to push myself.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And this all made us at Science Versus very curious, especially me and producer Caitlin Sorey. I would love that. Yeah, I'm incredibly unfocused. I'm like a. Like a tiny puppy.

[Caitlin Sorey]

It's like, what.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

What's this over here?

[Caitlin Sorey]

Like so.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Cause that is the promise that is that, like, the idea that who we are now is just one version of ourselves. And when we go on this diet, we'll be on this new and improved version of ourselves. Blythe Terrell, our editor at Science Versus, is going on this diet with us, and she was not as excited as we were.

[Caitlin Sorey]

It sounds like nonsense to me. Yeah. Just want to be really super honest with. With you guys. It sounds. I'm a skeptic, and maybe I'll be wrong.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

The truth is, though, once we realized exactly what this diet entailed, none of us were particularly excited. Caitlin gave us the rundown, most westerners eat about 50% of their calories from carbs. We need to get that down to 5%. Ooh. Oh, yeah. So going on keto means slashing carbs and sugars. No croissants, no pasta, no cake, no beer. You can't even eat much fruit. It's depressing. So with all this stuff that you can't have, how do you up your fat game?

[Caitlin Sorey]

Am I just having sticks of butter.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Cheese, avocado, nuts, eggs? You can make like an omelette. Put some mushrooms on top of that. All right, all right. Like fettuccine, but with, like, a little bit of olive oil. Absolutely not. You can have the olive oil. That's it.

[Caitlin Sorey]

It would be so easy for this to go horribly, horribly awry.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Someone say rye? No, no one said rye. Instead of beautiful fresh bread, I'm going to be eating slices of cheese with vegemite for breakfast, fistfuls of almonds for second breakfast, butter in my coffee for third breakfast, and the rest of the time, salmon with heaps of olive oil. Now, here at Science Versus, we first ate up the science on the ketogenic diet several years ago, but we've updated the research which has been booming in this space. And so today we are going to find out. One, can going on a ketogenic diet really improve your brain and even boost your mental health? And two, what can this diet do for your body? Can eating all of this fat help you lose weight? When it comes to the ketogenic diet, there's a lot of stuff that sounds like nonsense, but then there's science. Science verses. The ketogenic diet is coming up just after the break. Oh, before that, a quick word from my mum. When I told her that we were doing this little experiment, she was not impressed. It's a sample of one. The whole team. The team's doing it. So it's a sample sample of 3. Wow. Science versus team is going to do a whole new experiment on three people. They might as well drop the clinical trials. Sick burn, mum. Appreciate the support. You know we're also gonna read stuff like scientific papers. This episode of Science Verses is brought to you by Ford. There are few pickups more iconic than the F150 and the 2024 F150 Lightning truck is no exception. With an EPA estimated range of 320 miles. With the available extended range battery, it's the only EV that's an F150. Visit Ford.com to learn more. Excludes Platinum models, EPA Estimated Driving Range Based on full charge. Actual driving range varies with conditions such as external environment, vehicle use, vehicle maintenance, high voltage battery age and state of health. There's no better feeling than a personal win. And the State Farm personal price plan can help you do just that. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Welcome back. So there are all these claims out there that the ketogenic diet can make you a smarter, healthier human. So we tried it out. Okay, so it's day one of my attempt at the ketogenic diet. And how did I do? I did bad, Terribly. There's one solitary Oreo in my house and it was just like winking at me for hours. So I gave in and I ate it. Okay, it's day two attempt at the ketogenic diet. It's 5pm and I have one gram of carbohydrates that I'm allowed to eat today. And there is nothing in this house that I can eat. And I'm hungry. We've got olive oil. Like, I can eat a teaspoon of olive oil. Oh, Jesus Christ. That's not. Oh, ok. But the reason that we are going to stick with this diet is because while a lot of diets out there promise big things, what's different about the ketogenic diet is that it didn't start out as some hashtag on TikTok. Keto actually came from. Science nerds came up with it in the 1920s and it was actually created to treat kids with epilepsy, which is how our neuroscientist Dom D'Agostino first got interested in it. He was studying seizures when he stumbled upon this diet.

[Dom D'Agostino]

And I was shocked to actually see that the ketogenic diet was actually used for epilepsy.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

So counterintuitive. What were you thinking? Like, what a diet is stopping people having seizures?

[Dom D'Agostino]

Well, I didn't believe it at first and I pulled every article I could find about the ketogenic diet and I spent two weeks just immersed in reading this research and realized that it was actually real.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And we think that this might be happening because of this pretty cool thing that the ketogenic diet can do to your brain. Okay, so when you cut off your body's supply of carbs, AKA sugars, your body basically thinks that it's starving and it starts to use the fat that it's been storing on your bum for a rainy day. Now, your brain can't directly use fat as energy, so instead, that fat heads to the liver and gets turned into this thing called ketones. Your brain happily slurps up those ketones, which is something that really surprised Dom.

[Dom D'Agostino]

I basically thought the brain could only use glucose for fuel, so this was completely new to me.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And the fact that your brain is now using ketones as a fuel source, that could be the reason that some people stop having seizures on this diet. And we're still working out exactly why that is. It could be because ketones can help neurons communicate with each other better, or perhaps because it's sparking up chemical messengers in your brain. Or maybe it's because for some people, their brain just doesn't work so well on glucose. So switching up the fuel source makes the machine in your mind work a little better. Dr. Shobani Sethi @ Stanford Medical School says, if you think about your brain like a car that's not running that well.

[Shobani Sethi]

So if you think that maybe your car is a bit old and it's not as responsive to you with the gas and the break in, what a ketogenic diet is doing is making that system more efficient. I've never actually explained it this way, but I think it makes sense.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Okay, great. I love it. I love it. And it is pretty wild that just cutting out carbs and eating a bunch of fat could change people's brains for the better, at least when it comes to epilepsy. But now there's tons of claims that this diet can do way more than that. For example, headlines have been popping off with this idea that keto can help with your mental health and that it can work wonders for those with bipolar and schizophrenia. And this is actually what Shobani has been looking into. For her, this all kicked off several years ago when she saw something pretty intriguing. A patient that she was helping to treat who had really nasty schizophrenia went on this diet and seemed to get better. And Shobani was shocked.

[Shobani Sethi]

Actually, I was very skeptical. I didn't believe it. And I essentially ended up interviewing many people in the family to that patient to really understand, like, is this actually real?

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And after that, she wanted to know if this could be real for other patients, too. So several years ago, Shobani and her team got 21 people with schizophrenia or bipolar, put them on the ketogenic diet for four months. And these were patients who also had metabolic issues like obesity or pre diabetes. So they go on the diet and Shivani's measuring a bunch of stuff like their blood sugar, but also what was happening to their mental health, what their.

[Shobani Sethi]

Mood was, their energy level, Was there any paranoia or fear or anxiety? Hearing voices?

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And at the end of her trial, here's what she saw.

[Shobani Sethi]

Over 79% of the participants, they had a clinically meaningful psychiatric improvement, according to the scales.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

They had a clinically meaningful improvement. What would that look like?

[Shobani Sethi]

There was a patient who was also an engineer and was very well aware of their symptoms.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

He had schizophrenia. He would get paranoid and have these hallucinations where he heard footsteps and saw trash cans moving around. But then after going on the keto.

[Shobani Sethi]

Diet, he noticed a change in the paranoia per day and also visual hallucinations per day. He said initially it got a little worse over the first two weeks, and then it got significantly better, to the point where he noticed that when he had a higher ketone level, that his clarity and his mental energy improved and the amount of times that he saw per week a trash can move decreased.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

In Chobani's paper, which came out this year, they describe another patient who said that the diet saved their life. Quote, I would not be here today if it wasn't for keto. Shobani thinks that maybe, like with epilepsy, the brains of these patients just worked a bit better when they were fuelled by ketones. But we're not really sure how this is working. The diet also seemed to help with the patient's metabolic health, and so that might have made a difference for their mental health overall. Shobani is cautious. You know, this was a small trial. There was no placebo control. She wasn't comparing it against other drugs. But still, based on this early data, she is excited.

[Shobani Sethi]

I was surprised that something like that could change, like in the brain from a diet. And I know I'm saying diet, but I really believe that this is more than a diet.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And researchers aren't just looking into schizophrenia here. Other small trials suggest that a ketogenic diet might help folks with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. So this is all rather intriguing, eh? But it does bring up this huge question. What about people who don't have schizophrenia or epilepsy? What if you're relatively healthy? Can the ketogenic diet boost your brain? Just like swathes of people online are saying, well, the only studies we have on this are in mice and rats, which are actually pretty promising. The ketogenic diet seems to help them remember mazes. And even though we really have no idea whether this does supercharge a healthy brain. Shabani actually thinks it's plausible.

[Shobani Sethi]

We don't really know how healthy we are in the brain. Like, if we don't have a mental illness, we don't really know it's actually. How much inflammation do we have? Like, how much are neurons firing?

[Wendi Zuckerman]

As for science versus how did our brains go? Well, after a couple of weeks on the diet, no bread, no beer, no bananas, we sat down to talk about how we were going. He's out edit a Blithe.

[Caitlin Sorey]

If you guys remember, I was. I was seriously. I was super skeptical. I thought this whole thing was basically, like, pretty dumb.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Yeah.

[Caitlin Sorey]

And. But I have this thing where every afternoon at like 3:00, I'm like, okay, gotta get through the rest of the day. Like, gotta power through. I get like the 3 o'clock sleepies and, you know, whatever. That disappeared completely. I swear, I feel, like, ridiculous even saying that. But I did not get sleepy in the middle of the afternoon. I could just, like, keep going. I was like, okay, great. I have ideas about this. Okay, let's have another meeting about this. Okay. I'll stay until 7 and work on this other thing.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Your brain on keto was better.

[Caitlin Sorey]

My brain on keto actually felt better in a way that, like, absolutely shocked me. Wow.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Yeah. Katie, how was your experience? I didn't feel that.

[Caitlin Sorey]

It's like, I'll have what she's having. Exactly.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

So Katie and I didn't get our supercharged keto brains. So maybe it's not surprising when I tell you what happened several months later. Caitlin. Sorry. Are you still on the ketogenic diet? Hell no. Wendy, are you on the diet? Hell no. Blythe, Terrell, are you still on the diet?

[Caitlin Sorey]

I am still on the diet, you guys. I know.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Wow.

[Caitlin Sorey]

Yeah. Yeah. I am as surprised as you are. I really did start to feel better. And then, like, I was like, if I go back, what if everything changes? And I was, like, kind of afraid to go off of it.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

But you have kind of kept this under wraps.

[Caitlin Sorey]

Yeah. So I'm a little embarrassed about still being on keto because it feels dumb to stick with something where I'm like, there's no reliable evidence. And even if it is my experience, I, like, have a hard time trusting it. Like, what if it's fake? What if it's all in my head and it just, like, has sort of turned my world upside down. That's why I haven't told you guys.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

After the break. Can eating bucket loads of fat actually help you lose weight. Plus, what are the risks here? We learned them the hard way.

[Caitlin Sorey]

Itchy welts. Your entire body is just like this entire this one big rash. It was horrible.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

This episode is brought to you by Ford. I'm here with our editor and electric vehicle owner, Blyth.

[Caitlin Sorey]

Yes, I'm recording inside my Ford F150 Lightning truck to chat about the Ford Power Promise.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

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[Caitlin Sorey]

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[Wendi Zuckerman]

Wow, that's pretty impressive. Which models are included?

[Caitlin Sorey]

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[Wendi Zuckerman]

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[Dom D'Agostino]

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[Wendi Zuckerman]

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[Dom D'Agostino]

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[Wendi Zuckerman]

Game catalog varies by region and over time. Okay, that's the ad. You can go back to doing whatever you were doing now. This episode is brought to you by Netflix. From the co director of Shrek and the visionary behind Toy Story comes Spellbound, a magical new animated adv starring Rachel Zegler, John Lithgow, Jennifer Lewis, Nathan Lane and Titus Burgess. With Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman. When a powerful spell turns her parents into monsters, Princess Elian must journey into the wild to reverse the curse before it's too late. Watch Spellbound only on Netflix November 22nd. Welcome back. So Katie and I have given up on this diet. But Blythe is still at it. The next thing we're going to look at is weight loss. Funnily enough, we all lost a little bit of weight on this diet, even after just being on it for a few weeks. And weight loss seems to be one of the biggest reasons that people go keto, which is kind of counterintuitive, right? Like, how can you lose fat by eating more fat? To find out, we called up Louise Burke, a professor of sports nutrition at Australian Catholic University. And Louise has spent her career telling people what to eat, which is a pretty tough job.

[Louise Burke]

We seem to have this fallibility as humans that we've just gotta find ways of putting garbage calories in our mouths.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Cause it's so tasty, Louis.

[Louise Burke]

I know, but this is the problem.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

So could the ketogenic diet be a solution? Something that stops us from putting garbage in our mouths? Louise says yes.

[Louise Burke]

Look, some people have had some success using it to lose weight.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And there are studies showing that people can lose a lot of weight on keto, sometimes more than 10 kilos or 22 pounds in a year, though that is on the upper end. And during the first year that you're on it, the ketogenic diet does seem to work a little better than other diets when it comes to losing weight. Like, if you compare it to low fat diets, over a year, people on keto tend to lose two to three pounds more. But the question is, how does this diet help you lose weight? Well, one idea is that going keto does something special to your body, like it turns it into this better fat burning machine. And there is a little bit of evidence that suggests on a ketogenic diet, it does tweak your body's metabolism. Some studies also suggest that maybe ketones are tamping down your appetite, but there's a bit of a debate to that. But Louise says that if you're losing weight on this diet, it could be for a really simple reason. When you cut out all of your favorite foods, you just can't treat yourself the way that you normally would, so you end up eating less.

[Louise Burke]

The way that most people lose weight is that they eat fewer calories by restricting the number and range of foods that they can eat. And, you know, whether it's a diet that says you can only eat apples on one day and cheese on another day, etcetera, or whether it's a paleo or a keto, once you start reducing the range of foods that people eat, that diet will lead to weight loss.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And Blythe, who Ended up losing about six pounds, which is a couple of kilos. Said that this is probably what happened to her.

[Caitlin Sorey]

We were throwing, like, Doritos in the trash and, you know, couldn't have. There's a particular type of gelato. There's like a dark chocolate with, like, chocolate chunks in it. This type of gelato that I really liked. In the bin, in the freaking bin one day. And there just weren't many, like, low, you know, like super low carb treats that I was like, yeah, like, I'm reaching for an extra handful of that.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And so the broader point is that if you're cutting calories with keto or without keto, you're probably going to lose some weight. But there are corners of the Internet where people don't talk about their brains or the size of their tummies. They are more interested in brawn. And when you go on the ketogenic diet, it actually can change your muscles because it makes them better at running on fat. So people have wondered, will these revamped muscles make them better at sports? Will it let them run faster, be stronger, more powerful? And for Louise, knowing if the ketogenic diet can do this is her bread and butter. Because right now she's working with some of the best athletes in the world. A real group of stars. You know them? I know them. Champion race walkers. It's a weird sport, though, isn't it? I mean, away from your study, it's a weird sport.

[Louise Burke]

I thought it was weird until I started working with race walkers because it's like trying to have a competition to see who can whisper the loudest.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Yes. Jokes aside, elite race walkers are a thing. It's an endurance sport. So to find out if keto could give these athletes an extra edge, Louise got more than 20 elite racewalkers. And for several weeks, she put them on a strict ketogenic diet, while others got to eat carbs. And so did they crush their opponents.

[Louise Burke]

Ketogenic diet turned out to be a disaster for the performance of these athletes. One of the things they said was, look, it's the closest thing to death you'll ever get without being dead.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

What? So what's going on? Why are they performing so badly? Here's what Louise found. When you're exercising, your muscles use lots of oxygen, and burning fat uses up more oxygen than burning carbs. So ultimately, the carb athletes had an advantage. Basically, they had more oxygen in their tank.

[Louise Burke]

It's only about a 5% difference. But a 5% difference is really important for an athlete who's working at their limits.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And in elite sport, I imagine that 5% is, you know, could be the difference between gold and silver.

[Louise Burke]

It is. Yes, it is. It's a huge difference.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And we're seeing similar stuff in other studies, too. Louise repeated her race walker study and found exactly the same thing. The athletes were slower on keto. The research has looked into other sports like CrossFit, cycling, gymnastics. Gymnastics. And for the most part, people don't do any better performance wise when they're going keto. This year, Louise actually co authored a paper with the title, quote, ketogenic diets are not beneficial for athletic performance. And Louise, who's a marathon runner herself, isn't tossing her pasta in the bin.

[Louise Burke]

Look, I've tried it for a couple of days, but unfortunately, I'm an athlete who has very little patience for feeling bad and so just seemed a lot of pain to go through, and I just didn't have the patience.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

So going keto isn't going to help you fulfil your lifelong dream of being a race walker. Still, though, lots of people swear by this diet or at least are interested in giving it a shot. So our last question is, what are the risks here? Well, here's what we know. People on this diet are more likely to have constipation and kidney stones. There's also evidence that all the fat that you're eating can mess around with the fat in your blood, potentially upping your cholesterol. But from the few studies that have actually tracked people over a couple of years, we see that this diet doesn't seem to increase your risk of getting a heart attack. So it's hard to know what to make of this. But then let's go back to Blythe, because something very odd happened to her.

[Caitlin Sorey]

Um, yeah. So a couple of months in, I realized that I was not getting my period.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Oh.

[Caitlin Sorey]

And I noticed it in particular because I was trying to have a kid.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Oh.

[Caitlin Sorey]

And I was like, okay. Like, this is weird.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Once Blythe went off the diet, my.

[Caitlin Sorey]

Period came back very suspicious.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

I think we found the culprit, Blythe. But seriously, though, could going keto really mess with your period? The only thing that we could really find in the research on this was a study on 45 kids who were between 12 and 19. They were put on this diet, and nine of them reported menstrual issues, including not getting their period. Now, experts told us that if you lose a lot of weight on this diet or any diet, that could affect your period. But that didn't really make sense for Blythe, because she didn't lose that much weight. There was this one interesting clue in the literature, though, that maybe could explain what's going on here. So you can see that researchers are using the ketogenic diet to help people with this condition called pcos, or polycystic ovary syndrome. It's a hormonal condition that's linked to irregular periods, and studies have found that it actually can help some patients. And at Science versus, we just started thinking that perhaps if this diet has the potential to adjust your hormones in a good way, in a way that could potentially help with that condition, maybe it could also affect them in a bad way like it did for Blythe. We're really not sure. But if what happened to Blythe was a bit frustrating, what happened to her husband Jack was even more bizarre. So Jack went on this keto diet, thanks to Science versus, and he stayed on it for about six months. But then on a trip to Italy, you know, all that pizza and pasta, he decided to quit.

[Caitlin Sorey]

And this is where things were, like, really weird for him. When he went back on carbs, he started getting hives on his skin.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Whoa.

[Caitlin Sorey]

Like itchy welts.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

When he ate carbs?

[Caitlin Sorey]

When he ate carbs, they were so itchy. He was waking up in the middle of the night and getting into the bath and filling it with oatmeal to soothe his skin. Your entire body is just like this entire. This one big rash. It was horrible.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Yeah. So he was doing fine on the ketogenic diet. It was only once he started eating carbs that his body went bananas. He talked to a bunch of doctors, went to an allergist, and was ultimately diagnosed with a gluten sensitivity, one that he never had before, or at least he didn't know about. He didn't have any symptoms. Blythe asked doctors and researchers what might have happened and the best thing they.

[Caitlin Sorey]

Could tell her, maybe going on this keto diet and completely, almost completely cutting out all these carbs, where your body gets to this place where it's like, not used to having them, not used to having them, not used to having them. And then reintroducing them. Your body is, like, mounts this, like, insane inflammatory reaction.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Yeah, because that's what. When we emailed, Dom asked him about this, he said elimination diets, like the ketogenic diet, can cause food reactions if they are quickly reintroduced.

[Caitlin Sorey]

Yeah. It sounds like this is the thing that maybe can happen.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Is it still a problem?

[Caitlin Sorey]

Yeah. I mean, it's. Years later, he doesn't have bread.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Wow. We really f ed him over, didn't we?

[Caitlin Sorey]

Oh, my God. And this is why we shouldn't self experiment. No, I'm just kidding. Your mom was right.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Mom is a cry once more. So when it comes to the ketogenic diet, where does this leave us? Well, what's really interesting about this diet is that it actually can change how your brain and body works. Your body starts to use ketones as a fuel source. Right. Which could be really cool if you have epilepsy, maybe even if you have schizophrenia. And surely there's lots of people online who say that this diet makes them feel great. But the fact that this diet is changing how your body is working does open the door to the fact that it could change it for the worse.

[Caitlin Sorey]

I mean, it's funny because you, for me, I'm like, these are foods I was eating anyway, right? Like, oh, I'm just, like, eating less of one thing and eating more of a different thing. You know, like, more avocado, more bacon and almonds or whatever. But it's so interesting how big an effect that can have and these different systems of our body that. That can, like, actually sort of interfere with. And I guess I kind of feel like no part of me was like, oh, I guess I should be a little careful. Like, it just did not occur to me. Yeah. So I guess I would just tell people to sort of, like, be careful. Yeah. I don't want to leave on, like, a after school special kind of note, but it is kind of like, maybe be a little careful.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Yeah. Oh, thanks, Blythe.

[Caitlin Sorey]

Thank you, Wendy. Thank you for letting me tell my keto story.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

That's science versus the ketogenic diet. Hey, Michelle Deng, producer at Science Verses.

[Shobani Sethi]

Hi, Wendy.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

How many citations are in this week's episode?

[Shobani Sethi]

There are 92 citations in this keto episode.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And if people want to see them, where should they go?

[Shobani Sethi]

Check out the transcript in our show notes.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

And if people go on our Instagram, which is sciencevs, what will they see?

[Shobani Sethi]

This week, we'll be posting some facts from our episode and leave us a comment about what you thought about the episode.

[Wendi Zuckerman]

Yeah, yeah. If you've tried the keto diet, how have you felt? Did it supercharge your brain? Any weird symptoms, we want to know, let us know. Yeah. You can also tell me on my TikTok, which is Wendy Zuckerman. Thanks, Michelle. Thanks, Wendy. Bye. Bye. This episode was produced by Caitlin Sorey and Michelle Dang. With help from me, Wendy Zuckerman. Rose Frimler. Shruti Ravindran, Meryl Horn, Eketi Foster Keys and Romilla Carnick. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Additional help from Eric Mennel and Simone Polanen Fact checking by Michelle Harris and Eva Dasher Research help by Doria Resa Mix and sound design by Emma Munger and Sam Baer. Music written by Bobby Lord, Bumi Hidaka, Peter Leonard and so Wiley. Recording help from Marissa Shiai and Mary Shedden. An extra thanks to all of the researchers that we spoke to for this episode, including Professor Russell Swerdlow, Professor John Ramsey, Professor Judith Wiley Rossett, Professor Claire Collins and Dr. Deidre K. Tobias. Also thanks to Frank Lopez and Joanna Lauder. An extra special thanks to Joseph Lovell Wilson, Jack Weinstein and Mama Zook. Science Verses is a Spotify Studios original. Listen to us for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you're hearing, please rate and review us. Give us a five star review. We tell people that a lot of the stuff they believe in is garbage and people don't like that. But if you like it, then give us a five star review. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time.