What Is The Keto Diet And Is It For You?

1 min

The ketogenic diet has been around for almost a century as a dietary treatment strategy for drug-resistant epilepsy, particularly in children. Dr. Weil recommends considering the ketogenic diet for severe epileptic seizures in young people.

Because the diet is so strict, it requires a very strong family commitment and daily consistency. On a ketogenic diet, a child gets 75-80 percent of his or her calories from fat. The amounts of food and liquid at each meal have to be carefully individualized, which requires a lot of weighing and measuring.

The ketogenic diet (in situations other than epilepsy in children) has been criticized for encouraging people to consume too much processed foods, saturated and poor-quality fats and not enough vegetables. This diet’s long-term effects are starting to show promise, but it tends to be limited by the diet being so restrictive that few people can stick with it very long. That being said, if you have interest in trying a ketogenic diet, follow ones that have you working in several servings of vegetables per day, healthy sources of fat and work with your doctor to track your blood markers. The goal would be to focus on a diet that favors whole foods while avoiding much of the processed ketogenic snack foods available today.

Learn more about several well-known diets and which ones Dr. Weil recommends in our new series: Dr. Weil’s Guide To Popular Diets.

Today’s Health Topics

Editor's Pick

• Trying Tongkat Ali?

Health Focus

• Animal Assisted Therapy

Ask Dr. Weil's Q&A

• Is Drinking Milk A Breast Cancer Risk?