Abstract
Introduction: The ketogenic diet has been in use since the 1920s as a therapy for epilepsy. Since the 1960s, it has also become widely known as one of the methods for obesity treatment. Recently, this diet has been promoted as a lifestyle, making it highly controversial in terms of its practicality as a lifestyle diet and its duration without affecting one’s health or quality of life. Hence, this study assessed ketogenic diets from the people’s perspective of side effects, attitude, and quality of life.
Method: This retrospective observational study evaluated people who experienced or still practice a ketogenic diet. Health-related quality of life, the standard four-item set of healthy days core questions, was employed. We distributed the survey as an electronic self-assessment using Google Forms. The data were reviewed and automatically copied into a personal computer, arranged in a data-sheet in Microsoft Excel, and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 27 (Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.). The data were mainly expressed as numbers and percentages.
Results: A total of 226 subjects who adopted a ketogenic diet were interviewed to explore their diet experience. Females were slightly more than males (52.7% vs. 47.3%), and more than one-half (55.3%) of this study population aged 18-35 years. Obesity accounted for 55.3%, and the majority of the respondents (69.9%) adopted a ketogenic diet for more than one month. Among the most frequently reported symptoms were nausea (mild, 29.2%; moderate, 16.4%; severe nausea, 5.8%), dizziness (mild, 39.8%; moderate, 27.4%; severe, 11.5%), polyuria (72.1% in total), and lethargy (69.7%). Furthermore, 90.3% of them felt happy about adopting a ketogenic diet, and 81.9% would recommend it for anyone who wants to lose weight.
Conclusion: A ketogenic diet was practiced mostly for one to six months, making it a short-term solution to weight loss. The outcomes of the participants approved the efficacy of the ketogenic diet in weight reduction. Different symptoms and side effects occurred with varying intensities, especially in the first few days of adopting this diet. Overall, the ketogenic diet did not affect the quality of life and yielded a very positive overall experience.