The Impact of Keto Diet on Your Health
You might have considered going on the keto diet or you are already on a keto diet but you want to learn more about it. What are the impacts of the keto diet on our overall health or more specifically on hormones and the balance of hormones in our body?
You can’t open a social media page or go to a gathering (five people or less, please) without running into someone on the ketogenic diet. The ketogenic diet (usually shortened to keto) is a high-fat, low carbohydrate diet that has been used for 100 years to treat people with epilepsy. Recently though, it has become the diet du jour for everything from weight loss to mood stabilization. However, questions have arisen over the keto diet’s effect on female hormones? Is there truthful evidence behind the concern? Gildshire was curious and went after answers.
What is Keto Diet?
The keto diet is focusing on foods that have a lot of healthy fats, proteins, and very few carbohydrates. The goal of the keto diet is to get more calories from fat, not from carbs. The diet can help you reduce sugar reserves in your body. As a result, your body starts to burn fat for energy and produces molecules called ketones that your body uses as fuel. When your body burns fast it can lead to weight loss.
One of the main reasons why the keto diet is well-known is because it promotes weight loss in several different ways from boosting metabolism to reducing appetite. With the keto diet, you eat foods that make you feel full and the diet may even reduce hunger-stimulating hormones. In a study from 2013, researchers have found that people who followed the keto diet lost 2 pounds more compared to those who followed a low-fat diet. Some studies suggest that in six months you can lose 5 lbs. or more with the keto diet compared to a low-fat diet.
The Impact of Keto Diet on Your HealthThe Impact of Keto Diet on Your Health
Does Keto Diet Balance Hormones?
Everything we eat and drink affects our hormones. Your hormones took notice of the Snickers bar you ate just a few minutes ago and adjusted itself appropriately. The same is true of the ketogenic diet. In fact, the news is even better than that. The keto diet may offer real benefits for women, especially those who suffer from PCOS, endometriosis, and uterine fibroids. It starts with the diet’s positive effect on cortisol.
Cortisol is the stress hormone that you have heard so much about. For sure, it is a bad thing when out of control, but did you know that it starts out as innocently as a baby. When you are under stress, cortisol uses the protein stored in your body, producing glucose.
The energy from the glucose helps you fight or flee. That’s a good thing, right? But if your cortisol levels are elevated all day and all night, your body and brain begin to grow tired. Also, the extra glucose can mean elevated blood sugar, which leads to many problems.
Keto diet helps to bring your body’s cortisol levels back into the proper alignment they were in when you were a child. When they are balanced, your body begins to relax into the pattern that makes for efficient use of the body’s resources. You are already healthier
than you were before you started, and you may not have lost a pound. You can’t put your finger on it, but you feel better.
So in conclusion, the keto diet can help with hormones imbalances by simply improving insulin performance. Insulin resistance is common among people, and we can be completely unaware of it until we develop a serious health condition. On the other side, the keto diet has a great impact on the cortisol hormone. Having cortisol hormone under control is crucial for our overall mental and physical health especially today when we are living in a fast-paced and stressful environment.
What Does the Keto Diet Do to the Female Body? And, Can Keto Diet Affect the Menstrual Cycle?
The keto diet offers some hope for relief from chronic monthly woes. Have your periods always been problematic? Do you have unexplained chronic pain anywhere in your body, but particularly headaches or backaches? You may have hormonal imbalances that need the care of a doctor. But, what if your doctor has checked you over without finding any underlying conditions? Keto could help:
· You may experience regular and predictable periods again, or maybe for the first time in your life.
· You may experience flow lasting for 6-8 days. This is normal. When your body adjusts, the flow will return to a regular volume.
· Hormones, even at healthy levels, will affect your body’s insulin sensitivity. Glucose dropping or surging a bit is normal. It will return to normal post-period.
There’s more to the keto diet than simply losing weight. For example, the keto diet can help you deal with acne. It’s no surprise that acne has several causes and one of them is directly related to what we eat.
Eating a diet that’s high in processed foods and refined carbs can alter a balance of gut bacteria, lead to high blood sugar, and as a result affect your skin health. According to a study from 2012, by decreasing carb intake you can reduce acne
Researchers found that the keto diet can prevent certain cancers and even aid in the treatment of cancer. Still, studies in this area are limited and there is more research that needs to be done to prove that keto can truly have an impact on the prevention and treatment of cancer.
Some other benefits of the keto diet include improving heart health, brain functions, prevent Alzheimer’s disease, and reduces seizures.
In short, the keto diet may or may not provide the body goals you seek. No two people are alike. But for sure, keto isn’t doing any harm, especially to the hormone system. Try it for a better quality of life, and see what it does for you.
