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Keto Diet & Blood Pressure

Ask the St. Elizabeth Expert: Why is the keto diet not recommended for blood pressure management?

EDGEWOOD, KY (WKRC) - Before you jump on that high-fat eating plan to drop pounds, there are some things you should know about its effects on blood pressure.

It's all the rage: the high-fat diet, or what's commonly called the keto plan for ketosis, which forces the body to burn fat for fuel. Cardiologists at the St. Elizabeth Heart and Vascular Institute say it may not be the best thing for your blood pressure.

Every week, Jennifer Siffel stops in at the blood pressure kiosk at the St. Elizabeth Hospital in Edgewood to check her blood pressure. She's taking medication, and she hopes with the right lifestyle changes, she soon won't need it anymore.

Her diet is a wide variety of plant-based foods recommended by the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH, diet. But for many turning to the keto plan, Dr. DP Suresh says, when it comes to blood pressure, he doesn't recommend it.

He says the problem is that, as new research in the American Journal of Physiology, Heart and Circulatory Physiology shows, when it comes to blood pressure, a diet 75% fat, 20% protein and 5 percent carbs -- which is what a high-fat plan recommends -- while you may switch the body to starvation and burn fat for fuel, when you do that the hormones released actually increase your blood pressure.

Dr. Suresh says when it comes to any diet that promotes rapid weight loss, there is nothing beneficial in the weight loss. He advises instead to lose the weight gradually over 12 months, saying your blood pressure wouldn't go up.

You also tend to keep weight off when you lose weight gradually, and gradual weight loss can help manage blood pressure.

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