Keto made easy

Is Keto Dangerous? How to Answer the Friends Who Warn You

2017-07-31

In this video

An eight-minute answer to the message almost everyone gets after saying they're trying keto.

Watching this in 2026

Most videos answering "keto is dangerous" just say it's safe. This one says yes, it carries risk, then asks you to compare risks honestly. That is still the right shape for the answer.

The part I'd put first now is the part I put in the middle: the warning about my own audience. A keto group will answer every question with "keto." I said that in a keto group. It's the line in this video that matters most.

I was also honest about my own month. I said I really missed potato chips, and that my weight loss hadn't been astounding (video 1m1hPgaRIg4). My reason was not vanity: blood sugar and weight were both risk factors for me, and I didn't want to end up with diabetes.

The claim worth unpacking: "watch your lipids"

I said some people's blood lipids become problematic around six months in, and that I'd keep an eye on mine (from the video). I didn't give a source. Here is what the reviews say.

The National Lipid Association's 2019 statement on low- and very-low-carb diets found they lower triglycerides and raise HDL cholesterol, with a variable effect on LDL cholesterol. It also found they are not superior for long-term weight loss, though they may give more loss short-term.

The trial data point the same way. In Bueno et al., 2013, 13 trials of a year or more, very-low-carb ketogenic diets lowered triglycerides and diastolic blood pressure, and raised both HDL and LDL. In the two-year DIRECT trial (Shai et al., 2008), low-carb gave the largest improvement in the total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio.

So "check your lipids" was good advice, and LDL is the number to watch. Some people's goes up. Get a baseline before you start, recheck after a few months, and read the results with your doctor. More in cholesterol and blood tests before keto.

The claim to hold loosely: "250 grams of carbs is dangerous"

I said a 250 g-a-day carb diet is associated with type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The evidence collected here doesn't test that number directly, so take it as a rhetorical point rather than a finding.

What the diabetes bodies do say is narrower. Diabetes UK's guidelines say low-carb diets can be effective short-term for weight and blood-sugar control, with no single ideal macronutrient ratio (Diabetes UK, 2018). That's a "keto is one option" position, which is close to where this video ends up.

The line that holds up: confirmation bias

I said many people in the forum might be losing weight simply because they finally decided to make a change, and that any diet might have worked for them (video 1m1hPgaRIg4). The trials suggest I was onto something. In DIETFITS (Gardner et al., 2018), 609 adults lost 5.3 kg on healthy low-fat and 6.0 kg on healthy low-carb over 12 months, not significantly different. Paying attention to food does a lot of the work, whatever the label.

Who should talk to their doctor first

I said to get blood work and talk to your doctor before any major diet change. Specifically:

Then vs now

The tone toward critics changed a lot. Here, the friend is answered gently and the viewer is handed a reply. Eighteen months later, answering a Men's Health article, I went line by line and got personal with the author (video 1JbK1_ClDmY). The 2017 version is the better model.

Key points