Of all the different diets that have come and gone through the last couple of years, there’s one diet whose popularity is so huge that it feels like it’s going to stick around indefinitely: the keto diet.
This low-carb, high-fat eating pattern has taken the dieting and weight loss worlds by storm, and keto enthusiasts love this diet for its ability to help you burn fat through a process called ketosis. But because the keto diet has such a different nutrition profile than many other balanced diets and involves the consumption of large amounts of fat, it raises some questions - including how eating such a high-fat diet can impact your cholesterol levels and heart health.
If you’re thinking about trying keto to lose weight but are concerned about your cholesterol, this article is for you.
Worried about cholesterol?
Take our quiz to build a bespoke testing plan that will help you monitor and improve your cholesterol levels.
What actually is cholesterol?
Cholesterol is a fatty substance that is produced by your liver and travels through your bloodstream to be delivered to various cells in your body.
Because it’s a kind of fat, it can’t travel through water on its own. Instead, it’s packaged into different protein-fat compounds called lipoproteins for transport.
Two of the most important kinds of cholesterol to be aware of include:
- LDL, or low-density lipoproteins, are often thought of as “bad” cholesterol because they can stick to the sides of your arteries as they travel through your bloodstream.
- HDL, or high-density lipoproteins, are often considered the “good” kind of cholesterol for their ability to carry cholesterol away from your organs.
While cholesterol tends to be synonymous with poor heart health, it’s important to note that cholesterol is not a bad thing on its own. In fact, cholesterol is an important building block for some of your hormones including cortisol, testosterone, progesterone, and estrogen. It’s also necessary for letting your body absorb fat-soluble nutrients like vitamins A, D, E, and K.
The problems begin when you have elevated levels of “bad” cholesterol that are making their way through your arteries. Because LDL is such a fatty lipoprotein, it can begin sticking to the sides of your arteries. When you don’t have enough HDL to carry the cholesterol away, it begins to accumulate there.
And here’s why this matters: a buildup of cholesterol in your bloodstream can lead to the formation of plaques in your arteries, which can harden. This hardening of your arteries is called atherosclerosis, and this can quickly become a very serious health issue. Atherosclerosis blocks blood flow, which is vital for delivering oxygen and nutrients to every cell in your body. This then increases your blood pressure, and your heart starts working overtime to force blood through those blockages. Over time, this can lead to serious and life-threatening issues like heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes.
The worst part of this is that you may never see any obvious signs until it’s too late. High cholesterol levels don’t have any recognizable symptoms, which means if you aren’t checking in regularly then your first realization that you have high cholesterol could be a major cardiac event.
Is the keto diet safe for people with high cholesterol?
Your liver makes a certain amount of cholesterol, but your cholesterol levels can also increase based on your diet. We used to think that eating foods that had high dietary cholesterol contents, like eggs, were culprits for raising your blood cholesterol levels, but more recent research has found that it’s actually more problematic to eat high amounts of saturated and trans fats.
So, unfortunately, this can lead to concerns for people looking to start a high-fat, low-carb diet like the keto diet for weight loss.
The keto diet, which involves restricting your carbohydrate intake and favoring foods with healthy fats, has become popular in recent years for weight loss. The idea behind keto is simple: under normal circumstances, your body uses carbohydrates from your diet for energy. But when there are fewer carbohydrates circulating in your system, it needs a different energy source to fuel its various functions - and luckily, your body stores excess energy in the form of fat tissue.
So in the absence of free carbohydrates, your metabolism switches to a state called “ketosis” and starts burning through your fat stores for fuel. And of course, this “fat burn” translates to weight loss.
But are you sacrificing your cholesterol levels and heart health in the process?
Luckily, this is not necessarily the case - but when you are watching your cholesterol levels, the keto diet is not as simple as loading up your plate with red meats and dairy and calling it a day. Remember, saturated and trans fats, like those found in many animal products, can negatively impact your cholesterol.
If you have high cholesterol, you should consult with a health professional first. In addition, doing keto safely while dealing with high cholesterol will require careful dietary planning and, most importantly, consistent cholesterol monitoring.
Can you lower your cholesterol on the keto diet?
Here’s the good news: if done correctly, there’s evidence that following the keto diet is actually a great way to improve and lower those cholesterol levels!
This could very well be due to how effective keto is for fat loss. Getting to a healthy weight is one of the best ways to improve your cholesterol levels since you’re losing fat, and studies have found that just a 5-10% decrease in body weight can be positive for your heart health. Since a proper keto diet can lead to weight loss (sometimes significantly), this means that keto, like other effective weight-loss diets, can do a world of good for your cholesterol levels in the long run.
This was evidenced by one promising clinical trial that followed obese subjects, both with and without high cholesterol levels, who were instructed to follow a ketogenic diet over a long period of 56 weeks. The study found that both groups saw decreased levels of LDL (the bad cholesterol) and increased levels of HDL (the good kind), plus significant decreases in body weight. The researchers concluded that not only was the keto diet safe for the participants, but it was also effective for improving their cholesterol levels despite their low-fat, high-carb eating pattern!
It’s also important to recognize that there are different kinds of dietary fat that you could include in your keto diet, and many of them are actually heart-healthy. Unsaturated fats, which are mostly found in plant-based foods like nuts, seeds, and vegetable oils, can be beneficial to your cholesterol levels.
Common impacts of the ketogenic diet on cholesterol levels
Following a keto diet can have a range of effects on your cholesterol levels. These effects are based on numerous factors like your weight, lipid panel baselines, and the kinds of food that you’re including in your regular eating plan.
Here are some of the most common impacts that you could see on your cholesterol levels from going keto:
- You might see moderate increases in LDL cholesterol in the short term. Because following the keto diet is often a pretty dramatic change that involves significantly increasing your fat intake, it’s possible that your cholesterol levels can rise, especially before seeing any significant weight loss. A small short-term study with healthy adults following the keto diet found that subjects saw significant increases in overall cholesterol levels and moderate LDL cholesterol increases.
- But over the long run and with weight loss, you might see improvements in your cholesterol levels: namely, decreased LDL levels and increased HDL levels. Both are good news for your heart health!
- In similar news, going keto can also be good news for your triglyceride levels. Triglycerides are simply the kind of fat that your body stores and burns between meals. Since one of the main purposes of ketosis is to burn through these fat stores, people following keto tend to see better triglyceride levels over time, and this can also lead to better heart health when combined with improved cholesterol.
So going keto is beneficial for more than just weight loss - it could be helpful for your overall health. But again, there’s a lot at play here. Positive results are often heavily influenced by the kinds of fat that you’re eating.
So in order to do keto the right way, you need to make sure that you are regularly monitoring your cholesterol levels. This is true for people who already have high cholesterol, but it’s just as important for someone who has never had their cholesterol checked before. Remember, there are no overt physical symptoms that you’ll notice as your cholesterol increases, but if left unchecked the consequences include severe cardiac events and stroke.
How to monitor your cholesterol and ensure your health is on track
You shouldn’t think of going keto as a go-ahead to start cramming your diet with all the fatty foods you can find. Anyone who is dealing with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or other cardiovascular issues needs to watch their lipid panels closely to make sure that it’s moving in the right direction and not worsening their cardiovascular health.
Base’s Diet Test makes it easy to keep a close eye on your cholesterol and test regularly without having to go into a doctor’s office. The lipid panel included in this at-home test can help you monitor both your cholesterol and triglyceride levels so that you can make informed decisions about what you’re including on your plate.
Conclusion
Going keto can be a highly effective method to lose weight, but don’t make the mistake of sacrificing your heart health in exchange for those lost pounds. With a diet as extreme as keto, careful monitoring of your cholesterol levels is the only way to ensure that you’re on the right path for better health.
Worried about cholesterol?
Take our quiz to build a bespoke testing plan that will help you monitor and improve your cholesterol levels.
