A ketogenic diet can lead to multiple keto flu symptoms within the first few weeks of the diet, according to a new study. These peak in the first 7 days and decrease after four weeks. However, the effects vary in severity, as reported by users insocial mediareported. These reports reveal common but still unknown symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, sore throats, nausea, dizziness, reduced energy, fainting and even cardiac arrhythmias.
Keto flu experiences
“The experience reinforces evidence of side effects for many people after starting a ketogenic diet.” That's what Emmanuelle Bostock from the Institute of Medical Research at the University of Tasmania in Australia says. “These consumers have the most direct experience of effects and side effects and many report and share these in online forums.”
DieEffectiveness of the keto dietHowever, doctors have only proven this in cases of difficult-to-treat epilepsy. Nevertheless, the ketogenic diet is often recommended for weight loss, cognitive improvement, type II diabetes or even cancer. An often discussed side effect of this diet is the so-called keto flu. This is a collection of temporary symptoms that occur within the first few weeks of the diet.
To better understand how these symptoms develop, Bostock and her collaborators identified 43 online forums on the topic and manually collected personal experiences from 101 people describing symptoms, severity, and duration.
“We focused on social media because it is commonly used to discuss health issues. This makes it practical to use the experiences of people who have tried a particular treatment,” explains Bostock. “In the present study, we responsibly and respectfully used public domain online forum posts and analyzed their content to gain new insights into the side effects of the ketogenic diet.”
Consistent with previous medical research, Bostock and her colleagues found reports of headaches, difficulty concentrating and gastrointestinal distress after starting such a diet. In addition, they show the symptoms mentioned above. Consumers also experienced more than one symptom with varying degrees of severity.
Take countermeasures
However, there is also good news for people suffering from keto flu. The results of this study highlight the sudden onset of symptoms, peaking in the first and decreasing after four weeks. As soon as symptoms appeared, they disappeared within just over two weeks. Discussions in the online forum were generally supportive, sharing with others remedies such as maintaining fluid intake and correcting electrolyte imbalances based on widely held beliefs.
However, the results of this study were primarily limited to online forums and therefore lacked confirmatory evidence that ketone levels were elevated. Nevertheless, the resulting patterns may indicate important questions for future approaches.
“Taken together, such reports can bring a disease or side effects into focus and complement clinical observations for research,” says Bostock. “We see potential for onenew studyof this nature to continually inform all aspects of healthcare.”
