Low Carb Ketogenic Diet Reduces Lung Function?
An interesting study published in the life sciences journal CELL: Scientists from the University of Bonn, Germany, put mice suffering from asthma on a low-carb ketogenic diet, i.e., a diet structured on high fat, high-quality proteins, and low carbohydrates. The results were that the mice had lower mucus production in the airways, fewer asthma symptoms, and an overall reduction in lung function.
A similar mouse study was conducted in 2017, in which scientists fed a high-fat diet to a number of mice that had induced lung damage due to ventilators. The final finding was that such a diet significantly reduced the mice’s ventilator-induced lung damage involving respiratory mechanics, blood gases, and pulmonary edema.
Low-carbon Ketogenic Diet “Lung Health”
In 1930, scientists selected 15 children with severe chronic asthma and 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 out 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 in lung function.
In a related study in 2003, scientists compared the status of lung function in COPD patients who consumed a high-carbohydrate diet, with COPD patients who drank 2-3 cans of a high-fat, low-carbohydrate supplement every night. After 3 weeks, it was found that patients in the high-fat, low-carbohydrate group, had significantly improved lung function and reduced inflammation in the lungs.
Why Low-Carb Ketogenic Plus Lung Function?
The reason why the low-carb ketogenic diet boosts 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 a number of 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, the function of the respiratory muscles 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, does not control calories ketogenic diet, and control calories of the traditional ‘low-fat diet’ compared to the ketogenic can be better than the low-fat diet too much.
→ Lowering And Smoothing Blood Sugar And Insulin Secretion, Improving Lung Function
In 2016, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Institute published a very surprising study in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention. The results found that a high glycemic index (GI) diet, 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 pasta, as your main food, glucose levels in the 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 profiles are greatly smoothed out, which can really help improve chronic and acute lung disease.
→ Reducing Carbon Dioxide Production Reduces The Workload Of The Lungs
In simple terms, the lungs are responsible for bringing oxygen into the body and removing carbon dioxide 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.
Applied to the human body, when you eat more carbs, the more glucose is supplied, the more carbon dioxide is likely to be produced, and the more work your lungs need to do to help you clean it up, which may be fine for a short period 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 an anti-inflammatory diet in its own right, because 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 and activates 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. The study found that vitamin D absorption was 32% higher in the fat intake group than in the low-fat diet group.
→ Add A “Natural Active Agent” To Your Lungs
The low-carb ketogenic diet emphasizes the consumption of high-quality 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 a study published in the journal Nutrition found that an increase in saturated fatty acids improved lung function in COPD patients.