Do keto diets increase insulin resistance?
First of all, one needs to understand what Insulin resistance is. It is a condition in which the body produces insulin but does not use it effectively. It essentially means that the body needs much larger amounts of insulin to push nutrients into cells. This increases fat storage and thus also reduces the rate of fat loss (essentially in simplistic terms, whilst insulin is being released, fat loss is switched off).
In the long term you will decrease your insulin sensitivity as the body needs to protect itself, due to the brain requiring glucose to function.
Carbs do need to be reintroduced to keep weight loss going when it falters.
Why is this? When in a low-glucose state, where the body senses that dietary glucose is low and it is not sure when it is coming back so, peripheral insulin resistance is triggered.
This stops the muscle from taking up glucose that your brain needs.
Thus, fat loss is lowered/stopped as the metabolism begins to falter/slow as the brain attempts to ensure enough glucose is available for it to function, due to the peripheral insulin resistance (meaning in our interest, muscular insulin resistance increases).
The brain’s sensitivity to insulin is so preserved, this allows it it to get the glucose it needs from the low levels available to it.
Furthermore, there are some recent studies that suggest that very low carb diets in the long term can have a significant period of time to return to normal levels of insulin sensitivity.
We are not against low carbing (indeed only just recently produced an article explaining how to keto diet) , we use it with some of our clients when fat loss stops and indeed to prime carbing up with, but its not something we would suggest using for life.
