The keto diet remains controversial, despite all the research out there. Many use it to lose weight, while others prefer it to reduce carbohydrate intake. Until now, hardly anyone had wondered if the effects would be different in men and women. Differences exist?
UC Riverside scientists conducted a study to find out how popular ketogenic and intermittent fasting diets work at the molecular level, and whether both genders benefit from them equally. The idea behind the keto diet is that low carbohydrate levels and very high levels of fat and protein will force the body to use fat for fuel, resulting in weight loss.
Instead, intermittent fasting works on a similar principle, restricting eating to a small window of time during the day. During the hours without food, the body depletes sugar stores and begins to burn fat. Fat is converted into ketone bodies that the brain can use for fuel.
Is it different in women and men?
Despite its popularity, scientists have yet to identify the genes or proteins that allow diets to work. So this new research thinks you already know how they work. The key is likely to be a protein, called HNF4, which is found in elevated levels in the liver. It is a transcription factor, which converts DNA into RNA, which is then converted into new proteins, and it comes in two forms, P1 or P2.
Scientists originally investigated P2 as a pro-cancer protein. They did not find a link to cancer, but did note that mice with high levels of P2 in the liver also had different genes for metabolism. They also found that P2 appears in greater amounts later in the day, which could explain why the mice did not gain as much weight if the time they ate was restricted; even if they ate too much.
It is suspected that an energy-sensitive enzyme could cause the switch between P1 and P2, which could allow the process of burning fat for energy. In this study, special attention was paid to the ways in which male and female mice respond to ketogenic and intermittent fasting diets.
Eating too much fat makes women fat
The keto diet doesn’t seem to work too well for women, because they metabolize fat differently and we have different genes on and off in response to fasting. But we really don’t know why or how it happens; that is what we hope to learn.
If the diet is effective for either sex, the researchers caution that no diet should be taken to the extreme . It is unclear if all fat is metabolized on a fasting or ketogenic diet, or if a large amount simply accumulates in the body. Standard Japanese diets contain 20% fat, American diets on average 35%, and ketogenic diets can contain up to 70-80%, which is probably a very high amount.
If we eat a lot of fat, it will eventually make us fat. Just like if we eat too much of anything, we will get fat, including zucchini. The most important thing is how much we eat, what we eat and the time of day.
