Low-Carb Ketogenic Diet Improves Lung Function
A very interesting study published in the top life science journal Cell: Scientists from the University of Bonn, Germany, put mice suffering from asthma on a low-carb ketogenic diet, which is structured on high fat, high-quality protein, and low carbohydrates.
The results were that the mice had lower respiratory mucus production, fewer asthma symptoms, and an overall reduction in respiratory inflammation. The asthmatic mice, surprisingly, slowly got better after eating less rice, flour, and sugar and more good fats.
A similar mouse study was conducted in 2017, where scientists gave a high-fat diet to some mice that had induced lung damage due to ventilators. The final finding: such a diet significantly reduced the mice’s ventilator-induced lung damage involving respiratory mechanics, blood gases, and pulmonary edema.
You might say that these are just individual cases and don’t mean anything. In fact, the positive effects of a low-carb ketogenic diet on the lungs and respiratory tract have been found many times in previous human trials as well.
Human trials: low carb ketogenic diet “lung health”
In 1930, scientists selected 15 children with severe chronic asthma. They started them on a low-carb ketogenic diet with a 3:1 ratio of fats to carbohydrates. 2 weeks later, 10 of the children showed moderate improvement, and 3 showed significant improvement; 3 weeks later, 14 of the 15 children showed more than moderate improvement.
These improvements were maintained for 2 months, and then several children remained on the ketogenic diet for some time, with moderate to high symptomatic improvement for up to 10 months. Although a small trial, it is very informative and demonstrates the effectiveness of a low-carb ketogenic diet in improving respiratory and pulmonary disease.
In 1985, in a randomized, double-blind study, scientists explored the effects of low-, medium-, and high-carbohydrate diets, on lung function in COPD patients. The results found that after 2 weeks, those in the low-carbohydrate diet group had a 22% mention of lung function.
In a related study in 2003, scientists compared the status of lung function in COPD patients who consumed a high-carb diet, to COPD patients who drank 2-3 cans of a high-fat, low-carb supplement every night. After 3 weeks, it was found that those in the high-fat, low-carb group, had significantly improved lung function and reduced inflammation in the lungs.
After reading so many examples and scientific data, I’m sure you’re confused as to why dietary practices can sway a person’s lung health.
Why Low Carb Ketogenic Plus Lung Function?
The reason why the low-carb ketogenic diet is fueling lung function is that it plays a positive role in terms of lowering body weight, reducing carbon dioxide production, improving inflammation, and boosting the immune system:
→ Lower body weight and reduce the stress on the lungs caused by obesity.
Obesity affects the respiratory system through several mechanisms, including direct mechanical changes due to fat deposition in the chest wall, abdomen, and upper airways, as well as systemic inflammation. As obesity increases, respiratory muscle function may also be impaired due to the load imposed on the diaphragm.
A study published in 2009 makes it clear that excess abdominal fat reduces your lung function regardless of age, smoking history, or body mass index. One of the best things about the low-carb ketogenic diet is that it can help you lose weight effectively and still eat well, in a big bite of panko kind of way.
On the weight loss effect, do not control the calorie ketogenic diet, and control the calories of the traditional ‘low-fat diet’ compared to ketogenic can throw off the low-fat diet several streets, good too much, foreign countries have done a lot of research, basically ketogenic diet all win, I have shared a lot of before.
This is because the low-carb ketogenic diet avoids high carbohydrate intake, and the body’s energy from glucose (high carbohydrate intake in the body will be converted to glucose) is rapidly reduced.
At this point, the body will automatically turn on another mode of energy supply in order to function: burning fat – generating ketone bodies.
→ Lowering and smoothing blood sugar and insulin secretion and improving lung function
In 2016, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Institute published a surprising study in the leading cancer journal (Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention).
The results found that a diet with a high glycemic index (GI), which affects blood sugar and leads to insulin resistance, increases the risk of lung cancer by 49%.
This is first because, when you eat a lot of high-carbohydrate, such as rice and noodles, as your main food, the glucose levels in your blood can be very high.
Glucose in the airways can be a source of nutrients for bacteria and stimulate many respiratory bacteria and vice versa, which can lead to infection and worsening of chronic lung disease.
Additionally, high glucose levels inevitably stimulate the pancreas to secrete insulin to help deal with excess sugar in the bloodstream, a process that just as easily promotes elevated insulin-like growth factor (IGF) hormone, a hormone that is closely linked to lung cancer.
When practicing a low-carb ketogenic diet, the high-carb foods that constantly stimulate insulin are cut out, and the blood sugar and insulin profile are also greatly smoothed out, which does help to improve chronic and acute lung disease.
→ Reducing CO2 production and “workload” on the lungs
To put it simply, the lungs are responsible for bringing oxygen into the body and removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the body. Carbon dioxide is a waste product of cellular respiration, the production of which depends on the type of fuel consumed and can be calculated in the form of a ‘respiratory quotient’ (RQ).
When oxidizing one molecule of glucose, the body consumes six molecules of oxygen and produces six molecules of carbon dioxide, giving an RQ for glucose/carbohydrates of 1.0. Unlike fats, which have an RQ of 0.7, fat metabolism produces fewer molecules of carbon dioxide.
How to understand this? Carbon dioxide is like smoke in a house, it needs to be produced by fuel, the higher the respiratory quotient, the higher the carbon dioxide production, which requires more ventilation in the house to clear it out, whereas burning mostly fat will produce very little carbon dioxide, producing even less smoke, and therefore, not needing too much ventilation to clear the air.
Applied to the human body, as you eat more carbs, the more glucose is supplied, the more carbon dioxide is likely to be produced, and the more work your lungs will need to do to help you clear it out, which may be fine for a short period of time for a healthy person, but it certainly adds to the workload for those with bad lungs themselves.
When switching to a low-carb ketogenic diet, the amount of carbohydrates is drastically reduced, while the intake of fat is increased, the body adapts to burning fat for energy, and carbon dioxide production decreases accordingly, which, you could say, undoubtedly reduces the workload of the lungs.
→ Fighting inflammation and improving respiratory inflammation
Given that COPD and asthma, including many respiratory diseases, are driven by inflammation, any intervention that reduces inflammation could theoretically reduce the clinical impact of these chronic lung diseases.
The low-carb ketogenic diet is itself an anti-inflammatory diet due to the fact that upon entering the ketogenic phase, the body burns fat to produce ketone bodies, ß-hydroxybutyrate being one of them.BHB inhibits inflammatory pathways, such as NFkB, COX-2, and NLRP3 inflammatory vesicles, as well as activating antioxidant, anti-inflammatory AMPK, and Nrf2 pathways.
In addition, there is a direct correlation between ketogenic status and higher levels of adenosine, the body’s naturally occurring “anti-inflammatory and analgesic”.
→ Boosting Immunity
In November 2019, scientists at Yale University School of Medicine did a set of related studies with mice. The test mice were divided into 2 groups, with one group adhering to a standard high-carb, low-fat diet for 7 days, and the other group adhering to a ketogenic diet for 7 days.
The mice were then exposed to the influenza A virus, and after 4 days, all 7 mice that adhered to the standard diet died from the infection, while 5 of the 10 mice in the ketogenic diet group died from the infection. What the researchers found: the ketogenic diet, increased the number of a specific type of T-cell (a key player in the body’s immune response) found in the lungs.
Further, the low-carb ketogenic diet increases fat intake, which is important for vitamin D absorption because vitamin D is oil-soluble and can only be improved by increasing fat intake.
It was found that the fat intake group had a 32% increase in vitamin D absorption over the low-fat diet group. And the increase in vitamin D can indirectly improve immunity and prevent infection.
→ Add a “natural active agent” to your lungs
The low-carb ketogenic diet emphasizes the intake of good fats, which include fats rich in saturated fats such as lard, coconut oil, and butter, which act as “natural activators” for the lungs.
Phospholipids, which are lung surface activators, are specialized phospholipids that are formed from almost 100% saturated fatty acids. This partly explains why, in a study published this year in the journal Nutrition, an increase in saturated fatty acids was found to improve lung function in COPD patients.
Results from the 2007-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey: Saturated Fat Intake Associated with Lung Function in Patients with Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Additionally, even in the absence of respiratory disease, malnutrition can lead to a decline in respiratory muscle mass and function, and a low-carb ketogenic diet, which emphasizes the intake of high-quality fats and protein intake and focuses on the nutrient density of foods, can be very powerful in terms of nutritional reassurance for the individual.
Other Tips for Keeping Your Lungs Healthy
If you want to improve your lung health with a low-carb ketogenic diet, it’s going to take more than just a change in your diet and the quality of your food, in addition to several lifestyles that can be effective in spicing up your lung function:
→ Not all fats and oils are good for lung health
Not all fats and oils are good for the lungs. When you consume trans fatty acids (refined vegetable oils, hydrogenated vegetable oils, vegetable butter, margarine, margarine, etc.), they can get into the surface phospholipids of the lungs and affect lung function. And industrial seed oils (corn oil, soybean oil, etc.), hydrogenated fats, etc., may also exacerbate inflammation.
→ Eat more foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids
Omega-3 fatty acids have the effect of lowering inflammation. In your daily life, you can consume more omega-3 by eating salmon, anchovies, herring, sardines, oysters, sea bass, caviar, trout, shrimp, and wakame.
→ Eat high-quality proteins
High-quality proteins from animal sources, such as pork, chicken, fish, etc., build muscle and strength and are good for lung health.
→ Get more sunlight
Vitamin D is important for immunity and has been linked to lowering the risk of COPD worsening, so it’s good to get some sunshine to help synthesize vitamin D in your body.
→ Don’t smoke
Smoking is associated with most lung diseases, including COPD, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and asthma, so as much as possible, do not go smoking.
→ Exercise regularly
Spend some time each week exercising regularly for 30-45 minutes to energize your lungs.
→ Deep breathing
Deep breathing can be done to help clear the lungs and produce a full exchange of oxygen. Inhale, counting 1-2-3-4. then exhale, counting 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, to benefit lung function.