UPFRONT

Keto diet is anti-diabetic – but only for the first week

The high-fat, low-carb ketogenic diet could be good for you—but only for one week. After that, it starts to have negative health effects, a new study suggests.

The keto diet is a dramatic way to kick-start the immune system and reverse signs of diabetes and inflammation. And it delivers all those positive effects in just a week.

But continue any longer than that, and the body starts storing the fat it should be burning, say researchers from Yale School of Medicine who studied mice on the diet.

Eating keto tricks the body into thinking it’s in starvation mode by dramatically reducing carb consumption.

As a consequence, the body starts burning fats instead of carbs, which triggers the release of chemicals called ketone bodies as an alternative source of fuel. This process also releases immune T-cells, which can regulate inflammation and improve overall metabolism.

After a week on the diet, blood sugar levels and general inflammation decline. But, at least in mice, these health benefits go into reverse after seven days on the diet, when their bodies began to store the large amounts of fat they were consuming.

With one in three Americans prediabetic—with blood sugar levels already too high—anything that can reverse that should be welcome. And even better, it can be done in just seven days. “Who wants to be on a diet forever, anyway?” said researcher Vishwa Dixit.

For details on the limitations of this study, see Rob Verkerk's opinion on page 29.

Nat Metab, 2020; 2: 50

No, eating an egg a day isn’t bad for your heart

 Despite what we’ve been told for the past 40 years or more, eating an egg for breakfast isn’t bad for your heart.

But, as with everything, moderation is the key, and having one egg a day won’t do you any harm, even if you’re already suffering from heart disease or diabetes. It won’t even raise your levels of cholesterol, which was always the great worry about eggs.

Researchers from McMaster University in Canada took another look at three major studies that had researched the egg-eating habits of 146,000 people, whose heart health was compared with that of more than 31,000 patients with cardiovascular disease.

Average egg consumption in both groups was one or fewer a day, and it wasn’t affecting the participants’ health. Previous studies had suggested that people should eat no more than three eggs a week, but it’s advice that may have been too cautious.

Am J Clin Nutr, 2020; nqz348

Women low in vitamin D twice as likely to have breast cancer

Women with low levels of vitamin D are almost twice as likely to develop breast cancer, a major review has concluded. It’s a key vitamin that has anticancer properties, and it’s been linked to preventing a range of other cancers, including colon, bladder, prostate and colorectal. But we have to get out into the sun to top up our levels. Only a small amount of what we need comes from food and supplements, say researchers from Zhejiang University, in Hangzhou, China. They looked at 20 studies that included more than 35,000 breast cancer patients, whose blood levels of vitamin D were compared with those of healthy women. They estimate that women with the lowest levels of the vitamin were 97 percent more likely to