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FAQ
| Does a high protein diet cause kidney or liver disease? |
There are plenty of research that shows this kind of diet is extremely safe for your kidney and liver. The problem is when the patients already have significant pre-existing renal or hepatic disease; they cannot handle the protein load. Patients with pre-existing renal and/or hepatic disease should not be on this diet. A pre-diet and post-diet renal and liver function test will be ordered to show that this diet does not cause kidney or liver damage. People who worry that high protein intake can cause renal damage should note that obesity is one of the main causes of end stage renal disease through the development of diabetes and hypertension. There is not a single study to date that can link this type of diet to renal or liver damage in a patient with a healthy kidney and liver.
The Canadian Diabetic Association and the American Diabetic Association do not endorse the high-protein low-carbohydrate diet because they do not have enough data to show that the diet is safe. However, they also do not have data to show that the diet is not safe. They agree that this type of diet can help patient to loss weight and achieve better blood glucose control. However, they worry that the weight loss may not be permanent and this type of diet may elevate the bad cholesterol (LDL). They should tell me which diet could provide permanent weight loss, even if the patient goes off the diet. If the patient stays with the diet plan, how can the patient re-accumulate fat? For patient who is on this diet, the LDL cholesterol usually ends up stable or improved. It is because this is not just a high-protein low-carbohydrate diet, it is also low in animal fat diet. There are studies that show that for normal patients and type 2 diabetic patients, eating protein twice the recommended daily allowance does not cause kidney damage; especially if the patients stay on a low salt diet and have their blood pressure under good control. There are so many patients on high protein diets for the last ten to twenty years and yet to have case-reports to link protein consumption with kidney diseases. May be someone should look for kidney disease in the carnivores. Since all they eat are protein and fat, all their kidneys must be shot. |
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| Does your diet cause leg cramps? |
| Because ketone acts as a powerful diuretic, you may be losing more electrolytes than you anticipate. A simple blood test will find out if you are losing too much sodium and/or potassium etc. If needed, a supplement will be prescribed to you. Do not take prescription-strength potassium supplement without a physician's approval. High blood potassium can also be harmful to your health. |
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| Does your diet cause bad breath and constipation? |
If you follow the diet plan, you should not get constipated. However, your bowel habit may change from going daily to every second or third day. If you really suffer from hard bowel movements, then one should increase the fiber in the diet. Sugar-free Metamucil®, Metamucil® capsules, Prodiem®, and flaxseed are good choices. However, they will take 3 to 4 days before they start to work. Drink plenty of water with them. These fibers help to bind up cholesterol and bile in the intestine and excrete them out of the body. Hence, they can help to lower serum cholesterol. Fiber may also help to prevent colon cancer. On Phase 2, you will be eating bread and cereals that are high in fiber but low in carbohydrates.
If the bowel movement is hard, you may take two Surfak® capsules daily. If you need immediate results, you may take two tablets of Senokot at bedtime and repeat as needed. Diet green tea usually has some laxative effects. Other than constipation, bad breath might have resulted from the production of high amounts of ketone in the blood while you are burning fat (a good effect). Simply drink more water and this will flush out the blood ketone via the kidney. You may chew sugarless gum. |
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| Is your diet nutritionally balanced? |
| During the Induction Phase you are not allowed to have dairy products and you may worry about the lack of calcium in this diet. However, calcium comes from many other sources, like broccoli. Cheese, nuts, and yogurt will be reintroduced back to your diet slowly. Postmenopausal females and people with a lot of urine ketone will be given a calcium supplement. You will be getting the entire required daily vitamin and mineral allowance from eating protein, fat and vegetables only. People who are on low protein diet (vegetarian diet) often develop vitamin B deficiency. Where as a fat free diet can cause fat-soluble vitamin deficiency (vitamin A, D, E, and K). |
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| Does your diet cause gallstone formation and biliary colic? |
| Any time you alter the composition of your diet, not just the low carbohydrate diet, you are changing the composition of your bile. This may lead to the formation of gallstones. When you stop dieting, you also increase your chance of gallstone formation. Another mechanism proposed by scientists to explain the formation of gallstones is called biliary stasis. Biliary stasis means that the bile sits inside the gall bladder without movement starts to crystallize to form stones. This diet allows certain amount of good fat. Once the food reaches the small bowel, the gallbladder will contract and empty the bile into the gut to help with fat digestion. Hence there is less chance of biliary stasis. For the high carbohydrate and low fat diet, the gallbladder will not empty its content and there is more chance to cause biliary stasis. Gallstone disease is related to age, female gender, hormone replacement, contraceptive, pregnancy, obesity and rapid weight loss in obese patients. |
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| Your diet promotes ketogenesis. Is it harmful to your health? |
| It is the intention of diet to promote fat burning. It is perfectly safe. |
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| Does your diet cause weight loss because you lose body water? |
| It is true that there is a lot of free water loss during the first two weeks, but this will not be an ongoing phenomenon. This kind of water loss exists in all kinds of diet plans. The most convincing proof that you are actually losing fat is the presence of ketone in your urine and the loss of inches from your waistline. While a plant stores the extra sugar as starch, a human stores sugar as glycogen. Glycogen is made from many sugar (glucose) molecules joined together by water to form a compact, highly branched, spherical structure. During the Induction Phase, glycogen form muscle (300 g) and liver (70 g) is metabolized and used up within the first three days. As the glycogen is broken down into sugar molecules, water molecules associated with the glycogen molecule are released and eliminated via the kidney. You should see it as an advantage. An obese patient usually has water retention as shown by the presence of pitting edema in the limbs. Many obese patients are also hypertensive. They take diuretics just to get rid of the extra water. This diet promotes the elimination of free body water and improves peripheral edema and hypertension. As you start to consume excessive amounts of carbohydrate, the extra sugar molecule will be stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver. Water will be retained by the glycogen molecule and cause a sudden increase in weight. |
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