A ketogenic or keto diet is typically a low-carbohydrates and high fat diet which triggers weight loss. There is plenty of data to suggest that this type of diet can help a person lose weight along with many other health benefits i.e. cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and epilepsy. But the new study reveals that the keto diet can save a person or reverse the damage caused by heart failure linked with metabolic conditions.
The researchers from Saint Louis University report that a typical metabolic process can prevent heart failure. The animal model shows that heart failure was surpassed by changing dietary habits to a keto diet.
The complete study findings are now published as “Nutritional Modulation of Heart Failure in Mitochondrial Pyruvate Carrier-Deficient Mice” in the journal Nature Metabolism.
These findings suggest that high fat and low carb diet could be a significant therapeutic aid to save people from heart failure.
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The myocardium is the muscular tissues of the heart which need a high dose of chemical energy which is typically stored in food nutrients to induce contraction of the heart. In order to maintain its own capacity, the human heart acts like a super flexible and adaptable organ. It can switch to another metabolic fuel if the user changes his diet. An inability to show this flexible behavior typically shows an impairment that can be linked with cardiac dysfunction and may show up if a person has heart conditions or is diabetic.
There are two components of a mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC) complex, which are MPC1 and MPC2. Both these are essential for importing pyruvate inside the mitochondria. This new study reports that the MCP expression can be changed in the animal models as well as the human model and this genetic deletion may cause cardiac remodeling too.
But heart failure is preventable by changing the diet to high fat and low-carb diet such as a keto diet. This type of diet can make notable improvements in heart remodeling.
These new details on how a specific type of diet can change the utilization of mitochondrial pyruvate and hence the heart function signify that dietary changes can also play a part to improve cardiac function. It can sometimes reverse this dysfunction and remodels the heart while the body suffers from MCP deficiency.
There are many studies going on which are aimed to find out the benefits of ketones and their role in fat metabolism. With a more clear understanding of ketones, their role in cardiac remodeling can be understood better.
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This experiment also showed that diet with a high amount of fat but a sufficient amount of carbs, as well as protein, can also advance cardiac remodeling. So the keto diet is not just a popular weight loss plan but it can also be used to treat and improve heart failure.
Just like this keto diet, a long fast can also change the function of the heart and its dependence on the fatty-acid oxidation hence lower chance of a ketolytic flux. A fast that extends up to 24 hours can change blood sugar levels and also improve the plasma concentration of the ketones.
