According to the latest evidence, This development was revealed during the 8th International Scientific Symposium New Frontiers in Scientific Research, organized by PronoKal Group and held in Barcelona. During this conference, international multidisciplinary experts in the study and management of obesity presented the latest data on the benefits of treatment based on a very-low-calorie ketogenic diet.
“Nutritional ketosis has gained great interest in recent years because it is shown to have beneficial properties for health and promotes healthy aging, increasing longevity,” said Ana Belén Crujeiras, BSc, PhD, principal investigator of the Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela-Galician Health Service (IDIS-SERGAS) Group of Epigenomics in Endocrinology and Nutrition and the Biomedical Research Networking Center for Obesity and Nutrition Physiopathology (CIBEROBN). “Furthermore, in the case of obesity, we have more and more evidence that it is an effective treatment, mainly because to achieve this metabolic state (ketosis), routes that require the combustion of fats are activated, and this induces body weight loss.”
The specialist stressed that several strategies are used to induce nutritional ketosis. They are characterized by low carbohydrate consumption (low-carbohydrate and high-fat diet; low-carbohydrate, low-fat diet; and intermittent fasting). But Dr. Crujeiras warned that to use it as a treatment for a disease such as obesity, it must be backed by strong and solid scientific evidence, moving away from the concept of fad diets.
In this sense, since 2010, Dr. Crujeiras’ team has developed several studies focused on analyzing the efficacy and safety of treatment with a very-low-calorie ketogenic diet, the results of which have been published in high-impact journals.
Dr. Crujeiras commented on the main conclusions drawn from these investigations. “Our work has shown that the very-low-calorie ketogenic diet is effective for rapid weight loss and maintenance of lost weight, as well as reducing fat mass, primarily visceral fat mass.
“In this sense, a very interesting result is that despite the strong weight loss it induces, it preserves muscle mass and function and improves resting metabolic rate. These two variables are important, because all therapeutic strategies that exist to lose weight lead to a significant reduction in fat-free mass and also a reduction in energy expenditure at rest. This factor is associated with the risk of regaining lost weight, which is currently the great challenge in the treatment of obesity,” she added.
Specific methylation pattern
Dr. Crujeiras indicated that other notable evidence is the favorable impact on an emotional and psychological level. “To determine whether the caloric restriction of this diet and the strong weight loss that it involves were associated with an increased desire to eat, we also carried out an analysis with psychobiological tests. These results led us to conclude that this guideline is accompanied by a reduction of anxiety about food and an improvement in psychobiological parameters, thus increasing the quality of life of these patients.”
The specialist also mentioned that studies currently in progress show that the beneficial effect of this diet could be mediated by epigenetic mechanisms. “In our group, we have identified a specific DNA methylation pattern in people with obesity and we wondered if the very-low-calorie ketogenic diet would be able to reverse that methylome.
“We conducted a study in which we collected blood samples from patients on the very-low-calorie ketogenic diet (600 to 800 kcal/day) drawn before treatment, at peak ketosis, and at the end of treatment. After determining the global pattern of DNA in all patients with obesity targeted with this strategy and through bioinformatic analysis, we were able to obtain a methylation pattern. The results showed that after weight loss on the very-low-calorie ketogenic diet, the methylome that obese people initially had [was] reversed and matched that of normal-weight people.
“Continuing with this bioinformatic analysis more comprehensively, we wanted to see what kind of genes were differentially methylated, especially by the action of the ketosis itself. We found that most of the genes that exhibited differential methylation (in total, 292 identified) belonged to pathways that were involved in the regulation of metabolism, adipose tissue function, CNS function, and also carcinogenesis,” she continued.