This study of nearly 500,000 people has bad news for the keto diet

Scientists and dieticians are coming to terms on a recipe for living a long and healthy life. It’s not sexy, and it doesn’t include expensive diet medications.

Plants should be on your plate. Vegetables, entire grains, healthy fats, and legumes should all be included. Include no meat, milk, or highly processed meals that would be unfamiliar to a gardener or farmer.

“There’s nothing more crucial for our health than what we eat every day,” said Sara Seidelmann, a cardiologist and nutrition researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Seidelmann just published a big, blockbuster global survey of more than 447,000 people’s eating habits from throughout the world.

What she discovered – and this should come as no surprise – is that, regardless of where you live or what your daily diet is like, restricting entire food groups and thinking you can cheat your way into excellent health may work for a while, but it may also send you to your grave too soon.

The popular ketogenic diet, which entails strictly reducing carbs to less than 50 grams per day (about two apples’ worth) and focusing exclusively on high-fat foods, is one of those restrictive diets that may have long-term negative implications.

Paleo, Atkins, Dukan, and Whole 30 are among other low-carb weight-loss programs in this area. Nutritionists believe that, aside from their potential for harm, these trendy diets are extremely difficult to follow.

Some of the advantages of going keto are impossible to deny. A high-fat, low-carb diet can be an effective method for quick weight loss and blood sugar control.

The keto diet may also be beneficial for youngsters who have difficult-to-control epileptic episodes. People have experienced excellent outcomes managing those ailments on a keto diet with the assistance and advice of doctors for decades.

However, there is some limited evidence that going low-carb may cause people to become less glucose tolerant and develop diabetes, however further research is needed.

Based on well conducted laboratory tests of overweight individuals, we know that adopting keto does not help burn more body fat than a typical diet.

Instead, it forces people to drastically reduce their sugar intake (remember, sugar is 100% carbohydrate) and eliminate processed meals.

Both of these are beneficial practices for overall health and blood sugar levels, and they can help lower your risk of acquiring cancer.

However, eating a specific high-fat, low-carb diet, like taking aspirin, should generally not be an everyday habit for otherwise healthy people. Unless we’re genuinely famished, our bodies aren’t meant to run on fat.

Even Josh Axe, a proponent of the keto diet, has stated that it should not be followed for more than a few months at a time.

Finally, low-carb diets make it easier to overlook important nutrients such as magnesium, calcium, and potassium, which can be abundant on less restricted diets that include fresh, high-carb foods such as beans, bananas, and oats.

More research indicates that those who consume complete, nutrient-dense foods live the longest and have a decreased risk of cancer.

More study supporting Seidelmann’s findings was presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in August.

Researchers who presented at the conference examined the self-reported eating habits of approximately 25,000 persons in the United States and compared their findings to studies involving over 447,500 participants.

They discovered that people who ate a reasonable amount of carbohydrates lived longer than either low-carb or high-carb dieters.

“Our study suggests that [low-carb diets] are associated with an increased risk of death from any cause, as well as deaths from cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, and cancer in the long term,” Maciej Banach, a professor at the Medical University of Lodz in Poland who helped write the study, said in a release.

A third study, published this week in the journal PLOS Medicine, found that people whose diets had lower “nutritional quality” (i.e., fewer fresh vegetables, legumes, and nuts) were more likely to develop some of the most common and deadly cancers, including colon, stomach, lung, liver, and breast cancers.

Essentially, we’re finding that there is no quick fix for healthy eating.

Calculating the particular type of diet that leads to a long life can be difficult. Part of the problem is that we don’t live our lives in carefully controlled laboratory conditions (happily).

To learn more about which diets are the best long-term plans, we must rely on long-term observational data, usually in the form of surveys, until that scary day arrives and we all become well-studied lab rats.

Survey data from throughout the world has indicated that people who eat less meat, dairy, and processed foods while eating more fiber-rich plant-based foods like vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and, yes, even carb-heavy beans, have some of the best health outcomes. Their diets, according to Seidelmann, are high in “whole foods.”

“They were not processed,” she remarked of the diets of the people who survived the longest in her study.

These people would eat whole-grain rice rather than white rice. They would consume plants such as fruits and vegetables rather than more processed forms such as fruit juice or smoothies.

“You have more nutrients and more fiber,” Seidelmann explained.

Fiber isn’t only beneficial for keeping your gut moving; researchers giving fiber-rich diets to mice are learning that the carbs, which aren’t absorbed by the body, can help protect aged brains from some of the toxic compounds associated with Alzheimer’s disease and reduce inflammation in the gut.

They believe that the health benefits of eating more fiber apply to people as well.

However, a fiber-rich plant-based diet can be difficult to sustain on a low-carb diet because several of the highest-fiber foods, such as savory beans, crisp peas, and sweet fruits, are also high in carbs.

“Eating very low-carb, entirely plant-based is not a common habit,” Seidelmann explained. “It is more animal-based, at least in the Western world. That is exactly what it is.”

People on low-carb diets frequently consume more butter and meat, which can raise blood pressure and, in the case of processed meats, contribute to cancer.

Meat and dairy products can also cause inflammation in the body, which can aid in the formation and growth of malignant tumors.

All of the new scientific findings back up what parents, trainers, and coaches have been saying for years: eat less junk and be cautious of the current magic diet, whether keto or any other passing craze.