Dieticians have warned individuals to desist from depending on a ketogenic diet as a means of losing weight.

According to Nana Kofi Owusu, a dietician and a lecturer at the University of Health and Allied Sciences, this popular high-fat, low-carb diet can have devastating long-term health effects.

The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that in medicine, is used primarily to treat difficult-to-control epilepsy in children.

The diet is a tool for weight loss because of the dramatic decrease in carb intake, forcing the body to burn fat instead of carbs for energy.

“Ketogenic diet when done for the long term comes with calcium challenges like osteoporosis, a medical condition in which the bones become brittle and fragile,” he stated.

Mr. Owusu added depending excessively on proteins can cause dehydration and create problems with kidney stones.

“When I started the Keto diet, I was told it cannot be done forever because the carbs are also important,” one lady told Joy News’ Efua Evans-Chinery.

She explained a person on a Keto diet can do a little bit of carbohydrate when they hit their ideal weight.

Another lady said, “I am doing low carbs now after a strict keto diet for six months.”

She advised people to know and study themselves and their body before they start a Ketogenic diet.

Mr. Owusu said people on the diet can also in the short term, suffer from dizzy spells, terrible headaches and fainting.

He added, “you lose the weight when on the diet but in the long term you can experience a cardiovascular event because of the increased low-density lipoproteins (LDL) particles in your body.”