"Therapeutic Role of Low-Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet in Diabetes" (Al-Khalifa et al., 2009)

Dr. Lee Yes. Anyone who finds it hard to change diet abruptly can do so slowly. Now let's look at the third paper, an animal study, "Therapeutic Role of Low-Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet in Diabetes" (Al-Khalifa et al., 2009).

Dr. Lee The study randomly assigned rats to two groups. Diabetes was induced in one group; the other remained healthy. Each group was then split into three further groups receiving for eight weeks a standard diet, a high-carbohydrate diet, or a low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diet — six groups in all. As Figure 7-4(a) shows, rats given the ketogenic diet kept their blood glucose around 100 mg/dL whether they were diabetic or not, while diabetic rats on the high-carbohydrate or standard diet climbed all the way to 600 mg/dL.

Dr. Lee Looking at body weight in Figure 7-4(b): rats on the high-carbohydrate diet and the healthy rats on the standard diet rose above 460 g, while the ketogenic-diet rats reached 410 g if healthy and 350 g if diabetic. Diabetic rats on the standard or high-carbohydrate diet were the lightest, at 320 g. In Figure 7-4(c), diabetic rats on the low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet ate about the same amount as the healthy rats, while diabetic rats on the standard or high-carbohydrate diet ate more than twice as much. The reason is that nutrients were being lost in the urine.