The Ketogenic diet has taken off in modern times as being the most popular diet in American society. Its popularity can be due to its ability to result in significant weight loss in a rapid amount of time and has the potential to dramatically improve blood sugar levels in those with Type II Diabetes. In a society that struggles with obesity and has heart disease as its leading cause of death, a diet that rapidly improves ones health and weight understandably thrives. Whether or not this diet is sustainable is another question. The diet has been of particular interest in med and women in early/middle adulthood, thus coinciding with the reproduction period of human life. Previous studies of gestational ketosis focused on ketosis as resulting from maternal malnutrition, prolonged fasting, or diabetes. These, however, are different than the stable ketosis that results from consumption of a ketogenic diet (KD) that is of adequate energy and nutrients. With the growing Keto trend, its very important to understand how such a diet can impact embryonic development before women choose to follow it during pregnancy. The study I found observed the differences in gestational development in mice that followed a standard diet versus a ketogenic diet before and during pregnancy. Using Optical Projection Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the researchers found the ketogenic embryo was volumetrically larger, possessed a relatively larger heart but smaller brain, and had a smaller pharynx, cervical spinal cord, hypothalamus, midbrain, and pons, compared with the standard embryo. This showed following a ketogenic diet during gestation results in alterations in embryonic organ growth, where such alterations may be associated with organ dysfunction and potentially behavioral changes in postnatal life. I believe this research should be followed up further with human trials to better understand how the keto diet can impact human development within the womb before more women continue to follow it during gestation and potentially harm the life forming within them.
Study of Interest: https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2393-13-109#Abs1
Sussman, D., van Eede, M., Wong, M.D. et al. Effects of a ketogenic diet during pregnancy on embryonic growth in the mouse. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth 13, 109 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2393-13-109
Hi Shelby!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing this information. While I've never done the Keto diet before, this information is extremely fascinating to me as I know some people that swear by it. You always hear about diets having negative consequences but it's so interesting to hear about it in the context of fetal development.
We've learned so much this semester about the importance of nutrition and how the embryo is so susceptible to developmental abnormalities. I found another article that touched on the problems of low-carb diets in general during pregnancy (Desrosiers et al., 2018). A huge concern for pregnant women is that having a low carb diet means that they're intaking less folic acid (Desrosiers et al., 2018). As we learned in anatomy, folic acid is extremely important in the development of the neural tube and this study discovered that women on restricted carbohydrate diets had a 30% greater chance of having a child with anencephaly or spina bifida compared to those not on a restricted diet (Desrosiers et al., 2018).
Your study mentioned that the mice embryos were found to have a smaller brain and cervical spinal cord. I wonder if these birth defects are due to a lack of folic acid and proper neural tube formation? I would love to see more studies examine this and the impact of certain diets on fetal development!
Desrosiers, T. A., Siega-Riz, A. M., Mosley, B. S., Meyer, R. E., & National Birth Defects Prevention Study (2018). Low carbohydrate diets may increase risk of neural tube defects. Birth defects research, 110(11), 901–909. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdr2.1198