what if the ketogenic diet and food supplements helped to find them?

“Weight loss can positively alter female physiology. However, whether dietary restriction of carbohydrates or fats confers unique effects is less studied.” This was stated by researchers at Ohio State University (United States). In a study, published in the journal Plos Onethey therefore decided to compare the results of weight loss caused by a ketogenic diet with and without the addition of food supplements. As a reminder, the ketogenic diet, which “is not viable in the long term” due to its adverse effects and health consequences according to the Public Health Information Service, converts fats into ketones used by body and brain cells as an alternative to glucose. The supplements also increase blood ketones without a change in eating habits. Simply put, they put the body into nutritional ketosis, which is the state of the human body when it has better access to ketones as both a fuel and a signaling molecule.

“Six patients had not had their period for more than a year”

In order to carry out the work, 19 participants, aged 34 on average, overweight or obese, 11 of whom were premenopausal. “Six patients had not had their period for over a year and felt like their normal cycles had ended,” said Madison Kackley, lead author of the research. During a six-week intervention, seven participants followed only a ketogenic diet, which relies on very low carbohydrate intake and high fat consumption. Six other people did so and took ketone salt supplements at the same time. The last six volunteers followed a low-fat diet. Self-reported menstrual fluctuations were assessed every two weeks along with measurements of body weight, body composition, and clinical analyzes of fasting serum chemistry.

A resumption of periods after almost a month of ketogenic diet and food supplements

According to the results, both diets led to clinically significant weight loss, reduced body fat, healthier cholesterol levels and improved insulin sensitivity. “Fasting plasma glucose and inflammatory markers were not different between diets,” can we read in the works. The authors found that 11 of 13 participants who achieved nutritional ketosis reported at least one change in menstrual frequency, intensity, or both 14 days after the start of the intervention. The latter did not use any contraception. After 28 days, a resumption of periods was reported by volunteers. “One of our patients was 33 years old and had never had a period in her life. She got her period for the first time after being in nutritional ketosis for five days,” added Madison Kackley. In contrast, those who followed a low-fat diet reported no change in their periods.

“It was simply the presence of ketones that essentially altered the menstrual cycle”

Faced with these self-reported data, the authors suggest that there may be unique effects of nutritional ketosis, independent of weight loss. “It’s just the presence of ketones, which may help regulate women’s health as it relates to endocrine, cognitive and metabolic influences, that essentially altered the menstrual cycle. So if we’re looking for this signaling effect as opposed to a weight loss effect, so I think ketone supplementation might actually play a role in the grand scheme of hormone regulation,” they explained. Now, scientists want to determine the mechanisms that explain this association.