Cardiologist urges patients not to follow keto diet, calling it ‘a mistake’
The keto diet is “a mistake” that causes people to miss out on eating healthy, nutrient-rich foods, according to one prominent New York cardiologist.
Robert J. Ostfeld, MD, MSc, serves as the director of preventive cardiology at Montefiore Health System and a professor of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In an interview with Plant Based News, he detailed why he urges most patients not to follow the high-fat, low-carb diet.
“As a cardiologist, I believe the keto diet is a mistake,” he said. “The keto diet, I believe, is based on misinformation.”
According to Ostfeld, individuals following the keto diet miss out on eating whole grains, fruits, beans and other foods associated with significant health benefits. Unless the patient has a specific condition — refractory epilepsy, for instance — he said that patients should avoid the keto diet altogether. It might be a helpful tool for short-term weight loss, he added, but “so is cocaine.”
“When you initially start a ketogenic diet, you get something called the keto flu, and you feel a little crummy,” he said in the video. “So in the short term, you lose weight, but in meta-analysis of multiple randomized trials of weight loss with a keto diet versus a higher carb diet, there’s really only about less than a kilogram of difference in weight loss.”
The keto diet is helpful for pediatric patients with refractory epilepsy, but there are also several known side effects. Ostfeld said these include arrhythmias, mineral deficiencies, cardiomyopathy, fractures and kidney stones.
"I don’t think a ketogenic diet is your friend,” Ostfeld stressed. “And as a cardiologist, I recommend patients absolutely do not do it.”
Ostfeld said there is a lot of misinformation, including the belief that eating large amounts of fruit will cause diabetes. He said this is just not true, citing the China Kadoorie Biobank study study of 500,000 patients followed out for seven years.[1] That study found higher fresh fruit consumption was associated with significantly lower risk of diabetes and, among diabetic individuals, lower risks of death and development of major vascular complications.
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Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.