A KD is a diet that contains high percentage of fat and low carbohydrate. Does anyone know about research articles investigating the amount of fat needed? In literature I can find a range of 60-90%, however with no studies cited investigating this issue.
Sorry, I cannot help. Fat content in food was never in focus of my interest.
Hi Anayanci,
many thanks for your answer. But still I am looking for research articles proofing eg. the minimum of fat and maximum of CHO needed to still being ketogenic - inducing a state of ketosis. In our recent research project in 42 healthy adults (not yet published) who were on a ketogenic diet for six weeks, we found out via a 7-day food record that their macronutrient composition consisted of: 60% fat, 30% protein and 10% CHO. All probands were in ketosis during the dietary intervention period (measured daily via urine test strips). I thought that such a macronutrient composition (60% f, 30% p, 10% c) would not be ketogenic!?
I think you should mainly focus on the amount of total calories/day (between 450 and 800, usually 650-700), the quantity of HCO (no more than 1 g/kg ideal body weight/day, usually 40-45 grs/d with a maximum amount of 60 grs only for severely obese patients) and proteins (about 1 gr/kg IBW/day). Fats are used to cover the remaining quantity of calories.
This approach is supported by an Italian Position paper of the Italian Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition Foundation (Fondazione ADI) that you'll find at the following link, unfortunately only in Italian:
http://www.pacinimedicina.it/wp-content/uploads/positionpaper_DIETACHETOGENICA.pdf
An interesting paper is the: VA/DoD CLINICAL PRACTICE GUIDELINE FOR
SCREENING AND MANAGEMENT OF OVERWEIGHT AND OBESITY (Department of veterans affairs):
http://www.healthquality.va.gov/guidelines/CD/obesity/VADoDCPGManagementOfOverweightAndObesityFinal.pdf
@ Andrea: many thanks for your comment, but we did not implement a weight-loss KD for obese patients. The rationale for our trial is the following:
Regular physical exercise during and after anti-cancer therapy has been associated with many health benefits, ranging from improvements in quality of life and cancer-related fatigue, to the reduction in cancer recurrences and mortality among several cancers. Therefore, any diet that may compromise physical performance and the patient’s capacity to adhere to an exercise regime would be of great concern.
In the literature to date, there is limited data focusing on the effect of a KD outside weight-loss studies (caloric restriction) and involving a long enough intervention duration to overcome the metabolic adaption phase to chronically low-carbohydrate intake (1-2 week) on physical performance. Therefore, the major objective of the proposed study is to firstly assess whether the application of a KD without caloric restriction leads to a loss of physical performance (endurance capacity and muscle strength) in healthy adults.