New Research Suggests Ketogenic Diets Can Replace Obesity Drugs

A new study shows ketogenic diets can replace popular new weight loss drugs.

Americans generally hate “forever” drugs, i.e., prescriptions for medication requiring life-long compliance. The New York Times reported Sunday that popular new weight-loss injections are quickly becoming the exception.

“Most people, study after study shows, don’t take the medicines prescribed for them. It doesn’t matter what they are,” the Times reported. “But that resistance may be overcome by the blockbuster obesity drugs Wegovy and Zepbound, which have astounded the world with the way they help people lose weight and keep it off.”

Patients who stop taking the once-weekly weight-loss injections, however, generally gain the weight back plus more, often after enduring the painful side effects that come with the quick pharmaceutical “fix.” But a new study published a month ago shows a far simpler — let alone cheaper — weight-loss intervention with a much more promising life-long impact.

In February, researchers at Virta Health, a Denver-based telehealth company, released the findings of a 12-month study examining the effects of a low-carb diet compared to the use of glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1). GLP-1 agonists are the class of medications found in type 2 diabetes injections now prescribed for weight loss.

The team at Virta Health divided 154 type 2 diabetes patients prescribed GLP-1 injections into two groups. One group remained on the drugs while the other replaced them with carbohydrate restricted nutrition therapy (CRNT) supported by telehealth counseling. Participants who changed their diet were encouraged to restrict their carbohydrate intake to less than 30 grams per day with 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight. These patients who switched over to a ketogenic low-carb diet achieved the same significant and sustained improvement in weight loss as their peers who stayed on GLP-1 prescriptions.

“Results of this real-world analysis,” researchers concluded, “demonstrate that GLP-1 can be discontinued without weight regain following initiation of successful co-therapy with carbohydrate restricted nutrition within this care model.”

In other words, the study suggests patients prescribed popular new weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound can successfully keep the weight off when they discontinue the medication by switching to a low-carb diet.

On ABC last week, an hour-long special hosted by Oprah Winfrey featured a patient who triumphantly conquered food addiction with Mounjaro, another popular weight-loss drug produced by Eli Lilly.

“All of a sudden, I took this medication, and I felt like I was freed,” the patient said, crediting Eli Lilly’s powerful drug as an elixir to obesity. The same pharmaceutical giant has spent millions to advertise on ABC, which also had an executive appear on Winfrey’s infomercial sponsored by Weight Watchers, another company cashing in on the latest weight-loss craze.

But according to Dr. Georgia Ede, author of the new book, “Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind,” implementing dietary lifestyle changes to minimize carbohydrates can be even more effective to liberate patients from runaway weight gain.

The drugs induce weight loss by artificially lowering individuals’ blood sugar, Ede explained, but “the easiest, most effective way, and the safest way and the best way to lower that blood sugar without co-pays, without injections, without doctors’ visits, without side effects, is to remove those external sources of sugar from your diet.” Examples of foods that raise blood sugar to unhealthy levels include grains, starchy vegetables, and sugary drinks such as soda and fruit juice. Replacing carbohydrates on a ketogenic diet, Ede said, is “something that is safe for you to do for the rest of your life.”

“Not only will it help you lose weight if you’re trying to lose weight, but it will be healthy for all of your cells because you’ll be protecting yourself against those glucose and insulin spikes,” Ede said.

Americans, meanwhile, remain desperate for solutions to twin epidemics of obesity and chronic disease, rates of which are skyrocketing under the added weight of a mental health crisis run amuck. According to a Gallup poll last year, rates of depression have reached record highs while the CDC reports nearly 42 percent of American adults are metabolically obese. Another 6 in 10 U.S. adults are suffering from at least one chronic disease and 4 in 10 are suffering from at least two. Earlier this month, the U.S. also hit a new low on the World Happiness Report, falling eight spots to drop out of top 20 happiest nations despite ever-increasing prescriptions of psychiatric medication.

Dr. Ede makes the compelling case in her book published earlier this year that much of our mental health crisis could be relieved with a widespread recalibration of our modern diet. The brain, she argues, is no different than other bodily organs wherein optimal function depends on optimal nutrition.

“Medications can and do change brain chemistry, and they have their place,” Dr. Ede wrote, “but I’m convinced that the most powerful way to change brain chemistry is through food, because that’s where brain chemicals come from in the first place.”

It just so happens that our industrially ultraprocessed diet is a powerful promoter of inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance — all of which are just as dangerous for the brain as they are for the rest of the body.

For generations, however, in a tale chronicled by nutrition journalist Nina Teicholz in “The Big Fat Surprise,” Americans have been fed toxic diet advice from public health authorities which vilified saturated fat based on corrupt science. Americans dutifully embraced a high-carb, low-fat diet for decades, and began to suffer from an epidemic of obesity emerging by the 1980s. Now, roughly 60 years after the low-fat diet was recommended by the American Heart Assocation (AHA), pharmaceutical giants are eager to hook a new generation on expensive weight-loss injections as the new “forever” drugs embraced by desperate patients.

Links:

Wall Street Journal: Medicare Opens Door for Covering Obesity Drugs

Wall Street Journal: For People With Chronic Illness, Grief Is a Frequent Companion

The Federalist: Supreme Court Hears Challenge To FDA’s ‘Reckless’ Approval Of ‘Unsafe’ Mail-Order Abortion

Washington Examiner: Republicans need to turn against marijuana

New York Times: The Psychedelic Evangelist

Washington Post: Chemotherapy cured my cancer. Years later it likely gave me heart disease.

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