Health Risks From Chronic Low-Carb Diets
When I first posted this info a few years ago, I already knew MULTIPLE people who’d completely wrecked their thyroid/metabolism by going low-carb for years.
I have since seen so many more people go down this path, especially when they did it in the past and had results.
So many people drop a lot of weight, have hormonal burnout and put the weight back on, then try and go back and do it all again. Each time making the problem worse and worse. They eventually end up not able to digest entire foods groups at all, and even with an extremely limited diet, cannot lose weight.
So here’s all that good info again…
Did you know that carbohydrates play a variety of essential structural roles in our cells?
"The health value of these roles is obviously vast: without them, energy metabolism would fail, and with it, the vast array of energy-dependent processes within the body; without them, our ability to read our own genetic information or to pass it on to our offspring would fail; without them, immunity and digestion would suffer. We could expand the list of such negative health consequences endlessly...."
First off, there are so many reasons why people do good short term on a low carb diet!
The average American consumes a diet high in refined carbs and sugars and low in good fats, so naturally when good fat is added and carbs are cut out, you will have more energy, lose weight and feel better!
HOWEVER…
When complex carbs are avoided long term-- that is when problems arise!
The result is many times seen in conditions related to hypothyroidism. Carbs play a very important role in regulating thyroid function, especially at your liver.
When you cut carbs, your blood sugar drops (also harmful for diabetics long term but that’s another subject !!) and as your blood sugar drops your body will OVER produce stress hormones. When adrenaline is is overproduced you might feel great at first!
But your body can only continue to overproduce stress hormones for so long, and that is when the real damage happens.
Here are a few signs that yoU have thyroid issues:
• Cold hands and feet
• Excess weight creeping up
• Low average body temperature
•Not able to handle stressful situations
•Hair loss on back of legs
•Infertility
•Gut dysbiosis
•Depression or anxiety
•Thinning eyebrows
• Symptoms of osteoarthritis
• Sluggish reflexes
• Acne
• Low libido
When you already have low thyroid (and a huge percentage of the population has some form of hypothyroidism!) and you cut out carbs, it can then interfere with the production of your other hormones and your metabolism.
Your liver and thyroid are also directly connected, and one of your liver’s main functions is glucose storage. When you deplete these storages by removing carbs, your liver suffers from a lack of glucose, diminishing its ability to regulate blood sugar.
THEN, as result of poor blood sugar regulation, the body will produce MORE stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones break down muscle to create more glucose for brain function.
Cortisol interferes with the liver’s ability to convert free T4 to free T3, which makes the situation worse! As stress hormones rise, they create reverse T3, drives thyroid hormones even lower.
So now we have a vicious cycle that ends in sluggishness/fatigue, hormonal imbalance, weight gain, disrupted sleep patterns, premature aging and physical degeneration.
The liver is also responsible for detoxing excess estrogen, which is suppressive to the thyroid hormones. To be able to detox this estrogen, your liver needs glycogen. When the normal pathways of metabolizing estrogen are disrupted, it passes through the colon where is is reabsorbed!
See my post on estrogen dominance for more info! (Click here for post)
Another huge downside to chronic carb restriction is what happens when your body is trying to compensate for this glucose deficiency.
"Gluconeogenesis" is what the body does to ensure that we have enough glucose, even in conditions of carbohydrate deprivation.
Here is a quote from the first article I posted, which explains the process:
"Gluconeogenesis is primarily stimulated by the adrenal hormone, cortisol. Cortisol antagonizes thyroid hormone and, when chronically elevated, impairs immunity. As we move away from burning glucose and toward greater reliance on fat, free fatty acids elevate. Cortisol augments this rise even further by causing us to release free fatty acids from adipose tissue. High levels of free fatty acids can impair thyroid hormone’s ability to carry out its physiological functions within our cells even if blood levels of thyroid hormones remain normal."
This information is truly just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the harm keto/ low-carb diets can cause.
Here are a few of my favorite links.
And if you want to know more, check all of the references in these links, as most of them have dozens of published and cited studies.
Ketogenic Diet for Obesity: Friend or Foe?
High-Protein Diet and the Pancreas
How to Heal Your Thyroid By Healing Your Liver
Stop Eating Low-Carb (If You Care About Your Thyroid)
Challenges with a Low-Carb Diet
Forefront Health - This blog is all about thyroid health and has an incredible amount of info.
If you have a story of how you wrecked your hormones, share it below!
And please remember, this post is about LONG TERM effects.
(Similar things can happen if you do Paleo/AIP diets long term as well! Your body stops being able to digest certain food groups completely.
Here’s a good article on re-introducting dairy if that has happened to you!