Keto Diet versus Therapeutic Ketogenic Diet versus Banting and Atkins Diet

The founders and promoters of the Carbohydrates-Insulin Model of Obesity introduced a new weight loss diet called the Keto Diet.

The classic therapeutic ketogenic diet was developed for the treatment of pediatric epilepsy in the 1920s and was widely used into the next decade, but its popularity waned, and the main reason for this is that it wasn’t working well.

The mania to find a diet cure for every health condition, including obesity, took a foothold at the end of the 19^th Century immediately after the belief that oranges and lemons cure and prevent scurvy took a foothold.

There has never been a belief in the known history of the human race before the 19th Century that there is a specific diet that cures any particular condition.

The popular quote “let food be thy medicine, thy medicine be thy food” attributed to Greek Physician Hippocrates in 2013 proved to be false by a research carried out by Diana Cárdenas MD. Ph.D. Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the Universidad El Bosque, Colombia (the quote isn’t found anywhere in Hippocrates writings). (source: “Let not thy food be confused with thy medicine: The Hippocratic misquotation” - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212826313000924

At the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th Century, many diets were invented to treat certain conditions (one of them was the ketogenic diet). Not one of them produced any significant difference in the outcome of any health condition.

Despite the ineffectiveness of all diets for treating any health condition, the belief in diets as medicine becomes increasingly strong. Nowadays, there is almost at least one diet for every known health condition. For example, there are Cancer Diet, Diet for Muscular Dystrophy Treatment, Erectile Dysfunction Treatment Diet, etc.

It doesn’t matter how many times diets for weight loss proved to be ineffective, and in most cases counterproductive, there is a justification that this is the process of science and that the future progress of nutritional science justifies the damage done to the population.

The theoretical fallacies of weight-loss diets are ignored or marginalized, causing more suffering to people affected not only by obesity but as well to people affected with anorexia, bulimia, and diabulimia.

The classic Therapeutic Ketogenic diet is very similar to the Banting/Atkins diet, but the only difference is that the therapeutic ketogenic diet more restricts carbohydrates intake than the Banting and Atkins diets do. The fact is that the Classic Therapeutic Ketogenic diet is just a Very Low Carb diet. Classic Therapeutic Ketogenic Diet = Very Low Carb Diet.

The Keto Diet introduced for weight loss by the founders and promoters of the Carbohydrates-Insulin Model of Obesity is different from the classic Therapeutic Ketogenic diet. Apart from advocating restriction of Carbohydrates, like the Therapeutic Ketogenic diet, it also advocates for limiting overall food intake.

The purpose of the Classic Ketogenic Diet was to treat epilepsy, not obesity, and there wasn’t ground to restrict overall food intake.

The purpose of the Keto Diet is to treat obesity, which is the reason for restricting carbohydrates in favour of fat and protein, and it restricts overall food intake.

In reality, the Keto Diet is just the Classic Therapeutic Ketogenic Diet based on the Calories In Calories Out (CICO) Model of obesity. (Classic Therapeutic Ketogenic Diet + CICO = Keto Diet)

According to the Banting/Atkins diet, to lose weight, overall food intake doesn’t need to be restricted; only high carbohydrate food should be restricted in favour of Low carbohydrate food.

According to the Keto diet, to lose weight, high carbohydrate food should be restricted in favour of food high in fat and protein, and at the same time, overall calories in food intake should be reduced below the level required for basal metabolic rate and physical activity.

In reality, the Keto Diet promoters say that counting calories work better if you restrict carbohydrate in favour of protein and fat. And also, they say that if a person reduces overall food intake without disproportionally reducing carbohydrates, counting calories for weight loss will not work as effectively as it would be if food high in carbohydrates is disproportionally restricted.

It shows that the Keto Diet promoted for weight loss is based on the mixture of the Very Low Carb model and Calories In Calories Out (CICO) model.

Very Low Carb Diet + CICO = Keto Diet

Many research studies on the Keto diet found that it is not suitable for people with some conditions, including pancreatitis, liver failure, carnitine deficiency, porphyria, etc.

Suppose any diet, including Keto, isn’t suitable for people with health conditions. In that case, it should be regarded as an unsuitable diet for healthy people. It especially should be considered inappropriate for children. on the other hand, the fear of obesity is so strong that rarely does anyone thinks about what may be good and what may not be good for children.

Like the promoters of every known diet for weight loss, the Keto diet promoters claim many health benefits of the Keto diet, like; ketogenic diet may help treat some types of cancer, a ketogenic diet may help some people with type 2 diabetes, keto diet help erectile dysfunction, etc.

In practical terms, it means that a person who starts practising the Keto diet to lose weight, but if it doesn’t work for weight loss, he ends up being treated for erectile dysfunction, irrelevant of whether he has got that problem or not.

The promoters of the Keto diet proudly show their slim appearance, which leads many to conclude that their diet causes their slim body shape. The fact is that the promoters of any diet have a slim appearance. One more fact that was unnoticed, but it is in front of everyone’s eyes, is that the promoters of any diet share one more characteristic, and that characteristic is that all of them have elongated necks. The length of their neck is above the length of the neck of the general population.

The reason for their slim body shape and their elongated necks among the promoters of various diets is not due to their diets, but it is due to some other factor. That factor is extensively explained in this book by explaining the reason for their elongated neck and slim/lean appearance among the population that practices veering of brass rings around their necks.