What is ketosis?
Ketosis is a metabolic state in which your body uses fat for fuel instead of carbs.
It occurs when you significantly reduce your consumption of carbohydrates, limiting your body’s supply of glucose (sugar), which is the main source of energy for the cells.
Following a ketogenic diet is the most effective way to enter ketosis. Generally, this involves limiting carb consumption to around 20 to 50 grams per day and filling up on fats, such as meat, fish, eggs, nuts, and healthy oils (6Trusted Source).
It’s also important to moderate your protein consumption. This is because protein can be converted into glucose if consumed in high amounts, which may slow your transition into ketosis (10Trusted Source).
Practicing intermittent fasting could also help you enter ketosis faster. There are many different forms of intermittent fasting, but the most common method involves limiting food intake to around 8 hours per day and fasting for the remaining 16 hours (11Trusted Source).
Blood, urine, and breath tests are available, which can help determine whether you’ve entered ketosis by measuring the amount of ketones produced by your body.
Certain symptoms may also indicate that you’ve entered ketosis, including increased thirst, dry mouth, frequent urination, and decreased hunger or appetite (12Trusted Source).
What is a ketogenic diet?
The ketogenic diet is a very low carb, high fat diet that shares many similarities with the Atkins and low carb diets.
It involves drastically reducing carbohydrate intake and replacing it with fat. This reduction in carbs puts your body into a metabolic state called ketosis.
When this happens, your body becomes incredibly efficient at burning fat for energy. It also turns fat into ketones in the liver, which can supply energy for the brain (6Trusted Source).
Ketogenic diets can cause significant reductions in blood sugar and insulin levels. This, along with the increased ketones, has some health benefits (6Trusted Source, 7Trusted Source, 8Trusted Source).
Ketogenic diets for diabetes and prediabetes
Diabetes is characterized by changes in metabolism, high blood sugar, and impaired insulin function (20Trusted Source).
The ketogenic diet can help you lose excess fat, which is closely linked to type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, and metabolic syndrome (21Trusted Source, 22Trusted Source, 23Trusted Source, 24Trusted Source).
One older study found that the ketogenic diet improved insulin sensitivity by a whopping 75% (25Trusted Source).
A small study in women with type 2 diabetes also found that following a ketogenic diet for 90 days significantly reduced levels of hemoglobin A1C, which is a measure of long-term blood sugar management (26Trusted Source).
Another study in 349 people with type 2 diabetes found that those who followed a ketogenic diet lost an average of 26.2 pounds (11.9 kg) over a 2-year period. This is an important benefit when considering the link between weight and type 2 diabetes (Trusted Source24Trusted Source, 27Trusted Source).
What’s more, they also experienced improved blood sugar management, and the use of certain blood sugar medications decreased among participants throughout the course of the study (Trusted Source27Trusted Source).
For more information, check out this article on the benefits of low carb diets for people with diabetes.
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