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Ketogenic Diet: Principle and Disadvantages of the No-carb Diet

The ketogenic diet reduces body weight and increases well-being, say advocates. Is that true, or is no-carb just a fad?

Ketogenic diet: the principle of the diet

If the body does not get enough sugar from food, it has to produce a substitute: ketones. The ketogenic diet eliminates carbohydrates almost entirely to keep blood sugar levels low and boost ketone production.

This can be helpful when losing weight, because in this state the body does not release as much insulin, which replenishes the fat stores. Therefore, the ketogenic diet should lead to rapid and sustainable weight loss. In addition, less insulin in the blood also leads to fewer food cravings.

Alternatives to the ketogenic diet

The ketogenic diet is an extreme form of the low-carb diet. But there are many other variants of such diets.

The Paleo diet, for example, is related to the ketogenic diet. The so-called Stone Age diet mainly consists of fruit, vegetables, nuts, meat and fish.
The Atkins diet is also a low-carb diet – carbohydrates are almost completely avoided here. To compensate for this, one should take vitamin and mineral supplements.
The Glyx diet only allows carbohydrates that are slowly broken down by the body. This is to keep the blood sugar level stable.

Health pros and cons of a ketogenic diet

Medical studies mention the benefits of the ketogenic diet in childhood epilepsy. Alzheimer’s patients should also benefit from the diet. But there are also risks associated with the change in diet. Especially in the first few weeks you have to reckon with temporary side effects. According to a study by Australian scientists, these often resemble symptoms of a cold or flu, such as:

headache
nausea
Fatigue
dizziness
irregular heartbeat
In addition, the no-carb diet could overload the kidneys and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease because you eat more animal protein and saturated fat. So there are several reasons why you should not change your diet too lightly.

No-carb diets often pollute the environment

On a ketogenic diet, you often consume a lot of meat and other animal products. This puts a strain on the climate and the environment. If you decide to go on a no-carb diet, you should definitely make sure that all products are organic and regional. This is especially true for meat, fish and eggs.

A ketogenic diet can be bad for the climate

According to the DGE, eating carbohydrates is not related to various diseases such as diabetes, obesity or cancer. On the other hand, a no-carb diet may be suitable for losing weight. On the other hand, the ketogenic diet also poses health risks. In addition, the many animal products pollute the environment significantly more than, for example, a vegetarian or vegan diet.

If you absolutely want to follow such a diet, it doesn’t have to be the extreme ketogenic diet. To get you started on an environmentally friendly, low-carbohydrate diet, we reveal delicious low-carb recipes made from regional ingredients.

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Levitated Water: Principle and What is Behind it

According to its inventors, levitated water is said to have numerous positive effects on the body. You can find out here whether this is true and what the term means.

Levitation actually means making things float. Levitated water does not levitate, but is churned up by being squirted through spirally arranged hoses at high speed.

The principle was invented by the German Wilfried Hacheney in the 1980s. Levitated water is still popular today, although it is significantly more expensive than tap water. According to Hacheney, the water is said to improve cholesterol levels and metabolism, among other things.

What is supposed to make levitated water special?

To understand what makes levitated water special, you need to know a chemical property of water molecules: they each have one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. The two hydrogen atoms of a water molecule are each attractive to the oxygen atom of another, neighboring water molecule. Because of this attraction, the molecules bind to each other. You can understand this particularly well if you look at ice crystals under the microscope: They are made up of many individual water molecules.

The proponents of levitated water believe that even in the liquid state, water molecules combine into solid compounds called clusters. This is particularly encouraged when water is pressed through pipes. The problem is that the human body’s cells have difficulty absorbing such clusters. The levitation should make it possible to destroy the clusters in tap water. This makes levitated water particularly healthy – if you believe the supporters of this theory.

Levitated water: That’s what science says

Scientists have studied levitated water to see if it differs in any way from regular tap water. The problem with this, however, is that they cannot carry out experiments that would change the structure of the water molecules. Because they just want to check whether levitated water has a special structure. As a result, various investigation options are ruled out from the outset. In the experiments that are possible, no differences to normal water could be determined.

In addition, it has never been observed in research that water molecules form solid structures in the liquid state. Instead, the water molecules seem to constantly form new bonds – a bond only lasts for a fraction of a second. This observation contradicts the theory that liquid water molecules assemble into rigid, immobile clusters.

Even if water is an extraordinarily exciting element that shows many anomalies: So far, from a scientific point of view, there is nothing to suggest that levitated water is in any way special. In addition, there is no reason to assume that tap water is unhealthier than fresh water from the spring because of the pipes. Especially in Germany, the tap water has a very high quality in most places. Lead pipes, which could pollute the water with the harmful heavy metal, are only found in very few old buildings. And levitation could not change anything about the lead exposure. Unless scientists prove otherwise, we can safely assume that levitated water is no healthier than regular tap water.

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