Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by KozmoNau7 3132 days ago
Eating an elevated amount of proteins on the often recommended ketonic diets (high protein, low carb) makes your kidneys work harder to process this elevated level of protein, expelling more sodium, calcium and potassium, which also increases the risk of kidney stones.

If you're in really good health before you start a ketonic diet, it's probably not too much of an issue. But if you have an underlying kidney condition already, it could exacerbate that condition and possibly lead to kidney damage or failure. If you are diabetic, in the worst case it could lead to ketoacidosis and coma, and potentially be life threatening.

Add to this that apparently most of the dramatic weight loss seen on a ketonic diet is simply water weight, in some cases people also start losing muscle. That's not what you want, obviously. A ketonic diet is a really poor choice for someone who wants to put on muscle.

There are better and significantly less dangerous ways to lose weight.

1 comments

High protein intake shouldn't be a recommended keto diet, because the body will use gluconeogenesis to process protein into glucose, so you'll never be on ketoses, and therefor suffer from all side effects mentioned by you. It should be a diet high on fats.