Ketogenic diet followed by diabetes patients, despite lack of recommendations, finds study

Quebec, Canada: Despite the lack of safety information, strongly motivated diabetes patients are following a ketogenic diet (KD) owing to its wide range of reported emerging or expected benefits, according to a recent study in the Canadian Journal of Diabetes.

Currently, there are no recommendations on following a ketogenic diet for diabetes patients. Therefore, health care professionals are not very confident in supporting KD. In this qualitative study by Kayla Wong, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada, and colleagues aimed to understand the diabetes patients' perspective on following the KD particularly with regard to reasons pertaining to starting the diet, motivators, support systems, sources of information and challenges.

The study recruited adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes who followed a KD for ≥3 months. 

Participants were 54.5 (standard deviation 10.1) years old, on average, and had been following the KD for 6 to 19 (median 5) months; 43% were male and 79% had type 2 diabetes. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews, audio-recorded, and transcribed. Themes were analyzed using concept mapping until theme saturation was achieved.