Ketogenic diets or keto diets have been popularized by celebrities over the past years mostly due to their weight loss benefits. But did you know that a ketogenic diet can make you more focused and attentive? Did you know that adopting a keto diet can decrease your risk of developing neurodegenerative conditions and even make your brain more efficient at harvesting energy from food? 

Read on to know more!

What is a Ketogenic Diet?

Very simply put, a ketogenic diet is a diet plan that coaxes our body to replace (carbohydrate-derived) glucose with (fat-derived) ketones as its primary energy source.

That’s not Simple. Care to Explain?

Glucose (dextrose, to be more precise) is our body’s primary and preferred source of energy. Our body releases glucose while processing carbohydrates. This glucose is then used up by the cells to produce energy or stored in the liver and muscle cells for future use in a form called glycogen.

A ketogenic diet plan is a high-fat (70%–90% of the total diet) and low-carbohydrate (less than 20 g/day) diet plan that is specifically designed to ensure your body isn’t getting sufficient carbohydrates. This forces your body to be in a perpetual state of ketosis.

So, Ketosis is just a Fancy Way of Saying Fat Overloaded and Carbohydrate Starved?

Absolutely not. Ketosis is a metabolic state characterized by elevated levels of ketone bodies in the blood. One way to look at it could be that if an elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood is the cause, ketosis is the effect.

Ketone Bodies: The Body’s Backup Energy Source

A carbohydrate-deficient diet starves your body of glucose. When the body is glucose-starved, it (like all well-engineered systems) switches to a backup energy source. This backup energy source happens to be ketone bodies.

Ketone bodies are chemically prepared from dietary fatty acids and body fat in the liver. Once the ketone bodies are prepared in the liver, they are released into the bloodstream.

This triggers a state called ketosis. Our tissues can easily capture these ketone bodies from the blood and metabolize them to meet their energy requirements.

Many of our tissues can directly break down fatty acids to produce energy, but our brain depends on glucose and ketone bodies to fuel itself. Consequently, ketone bodies meet most of the brain’s energy demands during ketosis.

Research over the years has revealed several unexpected benefits our brain may enjoy when it is mostly fueled by ketone bodies. Some of them are as follows:

Ketogenic Diets Keep You Attentive Focused and Productive

The Human Brain, in a Nutshell

Most of what we regard as cognition relies on a complex interplay of chemicals called neurotransmitters and brain cells called neurons. Neurons carry electrical signals throughout the brain, just like wires in an electrical circuit.

Everything, starting from your memories, your thoughts, your intellect, and even your personality, is a result of these circuits working closely together in perfect harmony!

Excitation and Inhibition

Neurons carrying electrical signals are said to be undergoing excitation, while others are said to be inhibited. Excitation and inhibition can be thought of as the on-and-off states of an electrical circuit in the brain.

The 100 billion neurons in our brain form an inconceivable number of electrical circuits. At any given moment, some of these circuits are switched on, whereas others are switched off. The appropriate functioning of these circuits together makes the human brain function properly.

Neurotransmitters directly interact with synapses (junctions where different neurons interconnect) to excite or inhibit the connecting neurons.

Striking Perfect Harmony in the Brain: The Glutamate-GABA Balance

Glutamate and GABA (Gamma Amino Butyric Acid) are the two neurotransmitters that are responsible for excitation and inhibition respectively.
Since a complex balance between excitation and inhibition of the different electrical circuits present in our brain has to be maintained, it is extremely important to have a proper Glutamate-GABA balance in the brain.
Too much glutamate and not enough GABA might make it difficult for you to focus, pay attention, and even relax. What’s even scarier is that nerve cells can become damaged or killed by excessive stimulation of glutamate. Conversely, too much GABA can lead to impaired memory and coordination, forgetfulness, disorientation, etc.

In a recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal, “Metabolic Brain Disease” it was observed that the Glutamate/GABA ratio was 37.41% depressed in autistic children as compared to normal healthy individuals. This illustrates how critical the glutamate-GABA balance is in both the short and long term. To maintain this delicate balance, glutamate needs to be interconverted to GABA by the brain. The rate and efficiency of this interconversion are subject to a variety of complex biochemical factors and also require energy.

Read how proteins improve brain health here!

Ketogenic Diets and the Glutamate-GABA Balance

A ketogenic diet results in an elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood. Ketone bodies provide the brain with energy that is more energy-dense than glucose. Moreover, the biochemical pathways associated with ketone metabolism are slightly different from those associated with glucose metabolism.

The nature of the biochemical pathways associated with ketone metabolism allows the brain cells to convert the extra glutamate into GABA more efficiently. This keeps you attentive, focused, and productive, even in high-stress situations.

Ketogenic Diets help your Body Fight Free Radical Damage

The Horror of Free Radicals?

Free radicals are extremely unstable, charged particles that can bind to almost anything they touch. This is bad for biological systems such as ourselves, as free radicals can enter our cells and randomly bind to any biomolecule, causing mayhem. This is the basis of cellular oxidative damage. The idiom “Bull in a China shop” is probably an apt way to describe what free radicals exactly do inside the cell. 

Oxidation damage caused by free radicals is one of the best-known causes of aging, cellular damage, and even cancer. Free radical damage in the brain is particularly concerning as it can cause neurodegeneration and neurodegenerative diseases.

Learn more about antioxidants here!

Our body produces free radicals in response to stress. It can even enter our body from the outside environment. Thus, a variety of factors can cause oxidative damage in our bodies.

Free Radical Damage Prevention and Control in Our Body

Our body has developed its countermeasures to prevent and control oxidative damage. Our body has a chemical army of antioxidants that actively seek out, capture and eradicate free radicals before they can cause oxidative damage.

Glutathione peroxidase is an important member of this chemical army.

Ketogenic Diets and Free Radical Damage Prevention and Control in Our Body

A ketogenic diet produces ketone bodies, as we already discussed. To successfully transition to a ketogenic diet, the body has to optimally utilize ketone bodies as its primary energy source. To do this, several intricate yet profound biochemical changes occur inside the body cells. Some of these changes increase the activity of glutathione peroxidase.
Glutathione peroxidase directly inhibits the production of free radicals and enhances their breakdown, thus protecting our brain from oxidative damage. In today’s world, where pollution and stress are at a record high, providing an environment ripe for free radical growth, we all need the protection we can get from these hazards. Ketogenic diets play their part in equipping our bodies to fight the critical health challenges of the near future.

Ketogenic Diets make your Cells More Energy Efficient

Mitochondria – The Cell’s Power Plants

“The mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell.”

This is a snippet of information some of us may have come across during our school life. In other words, mitochondria are miniature power plants present in our cells that convert the food we consume into energy our cells can use to do work.

Ketogenic Diets and the Cell’s Power Plants

The ketogenic diet can cause complex gene-level changes, which stimulate the formation of the new mitochondrion. In simpler terms, a ketogenic diet coaxes the cells to set up more power plants! Although this was observed in lab rats, the biochemistry concerning mitochondria is central to life itself, so this might be valid for humans as well.

This not only enhances the capacity of the brain cells, but it also helps protect them from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease later in life. Several studies indicate the potential benefits ketogenic diets may have for individuals suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Beyond Neurodegenerative Conditions

Mitochondria also have other important biological roles in almost all systems of the body. A study published by JMIR Diabetes in 2017 included hundreds of type 2 diabetics who followed a ketogenic diet for several months. For the first 10 weeks of the study, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) decreased to below the diagnostic threshold in more than a third of patients, and prescription medication was reduced or eliminated for more than half of patients.

In other words, diabetics on a ketogenic diet significantly benefited, as it helped more than half of them reduce or eliminate their drug dependence.

This may be because ketogenic diets replace almost all the carbohydrates in the diet with fats. This eliminates the blood sugar spikes characteristic of unmoderated carbohydrate consumption. Thus, diabetics can manage and even reduce their blood sugar levels. 

Conclusion

In summary, not only are ketone bodies a cleaner source of fuel for the body and the brain but they also have a broader set of brain health benefits associated with them. The health benefits of ketogenic diets don’t end with the brain. 

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