Thanks for Publishing my Photo, in Thursday: What Does The Science Say About Following A Keto Diet? | St. Louis Public Radio

2018.07.21 Ketofest, New London, CT, USA 04914
2018.07.21 Ketofest, New London, CT, USA 04914 (View on Flickr.com)

Thank you for publishing my photo, @stlpublicradio, in this piece written by @EmilyWoodbury.

It was taken, by the way at 2018’s Ketofest, in New London, CT, which you can read more about in this blog post.

I’ll call the piece “accuracy challenged”

The piece has numerous factual errors that I’ll take the liberty to clear up here 🙂

  • It’s correct that “diabetic ketoacidosis” is a risk for people with Type 1 diabetes. However, this is around 5% of the U.S. population that has diabetes. 95% of people with diabetes have Type 2 and can make insulin, which protects from “ketoacidosis.” This is not the same as “ketosis.”
  • People with Type 1 diabetes can still benefit from these diets, here’s an excellent paper that shows the experience of this group.
  • Agreed that patients, especially those on medications, should transition to a diet like this with physician supervision. This is not, however, from the danger of the diet. It is from the danger of the medications which become less necessary with the diet. A person needs to be safely “de-prescribed” from medications. At the end, it’s a better place to be on less medications, or at least, I’ve met few people who hope to be on more medications. Diet Doctor has a very simple getting started guide that includes all of these contraindications.
  • The implication that people should only be recommended this diet if they have epilepsy or that they need to be hospitalized to transition to this diet is false and misleading. I assume this is a misquote of the physician interviewed. People CAN be transitioned to this diet while they are hospitalized for something else, but hospitalization is not a requirement and neither is epilepsy.

There are many, many, many, physicians who are available to discuss the science around low-carbohydrate diets, on demand, for any member of the press. One source is the Low-Carb Action network: @lowcarbaction .

And did I mention yet it’s now in the 2020 Standard of Care for the American Diabetes Association?

It’s in the 2020 Standard of Care for the American Diabetes Association – which now covers all people with diabetes AND prediabetes, so that’s 50% of the U.S. Population.

I understand people are still getting up to speed on something that’s new, and different from what they learned in a previous century. We’re here to help.

This conversation will be on “St. Louis on the Air” during the noon hour Thursday. This story will be updated after the show. Here are several ways you can

Source: Thursday: What Does The Science Say About Following A Keto Diet? | St. Louis Public Radio

Ted Eytan, MD