The keto diet is becoming very popular these days, as it has been proven effective when it comes to losing weight. A somewhat peculiar diet that emerged as an experiment for certain health problems and that can now help us in the bikini operation, after Christmas and also to combat migraines.
The keto or ketogenic diet consists of a diet where we eliminate more than 90% of daily carbohydrates. It involves taking away foods such as usual bread, pasta, sweets and pastries, as well as industrial pastries, sugary products and drinks, some dairy products, corn, some legumes, rice, etc.
By making this change in our diet, we force the body to change its metabolism process, so now, the body absorbs the energy from accumulated fat, instead of carbohydrates.
Then the body is brought into a state of ketosis , that is, when the body notices that the glycogen stores in the liver are reduced, this organ begins to produce ketone bodies from alternative sources, that is, accumulated fat.
Ketosis is not a normal state of the body, only for specific moments, so this diet must be guided by an expert nutritionist who knows our state of health.
The keto diet emerged as an experiment to alleviate certain health problems such as epilepsy, Type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular risk. They have also been shown, although there is not 100% conclusive evidence, that they relieve severe headaches and migraines.
How does the keto diet help?
This type of diet works with migraines in the same way as in other problems such as diabetes or epilepsy. We already know how dangerous sugar is in our day-to-day lives and we still continue to consume it on a daily basis.
According to the WHO, a child or an adult should not exceed 25 grams of sugar a day and there are cases in which that amount triples. For this reason, when we make such a radical diet change, we notice improvement, and in that case it is the elimination of sugar.
When the body detects a shortage of glucose, the machinery is activated to obtain energy from other sources, as we have explained before. And it is that ketone bodies are water-soluble molecules that are capable of reducing sterile inflammations, that is, they help reduce migraines .
In fact, the nutritional pyramid of the keto diet is quite a long way from what is considered a healthy and varied diet. With this we may come to understand the importance of what we eat and how it affects our health and our day to day.
Each person is a particular case, so it may or may not work, what we can confirm is that it is a diet high in fat, moderate in protein and very low in carbohydrates, since it only allows about 50 grams of hydrates per day.
