As ALWAYS, get a physical exam by your doctor BEFORE starting any diet or exercise program. Not doing this can endanger your life !! There can be any number of hidden medical conditions unknown to you and it can be extremely dangerous to diet or exercise. Some of these are listed below.
- Pregnancy. Pregnancy changes your body in so many ways each week that anything medically with you or the fetus can endanger both your lives. Pregnant women should never diet.
- Type I diabetes mellitus also known as juvenile diabetes or insulin dependent diabetes. While the keto diet is great for people with type II diabetes, it can be dangerous to people with type I. On a strict keto diet your carb intake is reduced to 20 grams and your fats are increased accordingly for your weight. This forces your body to use ketones to burn stored fat for energy instead of burning carbs that you eat in excess. This is called nutritional ketosis.
A type I diabetic can be in a state of metabolism called ketoacidosis which is a medical emergency. This is a result of their body being unable to produce insulin or not administering too little of a dose of insulin. This can also happen in undiagnosed type I diabetes. Without insulin, sugar is not properly transported into the body’s cells causing sugar and ketones to rapidly increase to excess causing ketoacidosis, a metabolic life-threatening chemical imbalance.
- Active cancer treatment.
- A disorder of fat metabolism. Such as pancreatitis, fat malabsorption, cystic fibrosis, gallbladder disorders, gallstones and any other fat metabolism disorders. If the body cannot properly digest fats, the high fat intake keto diet is not for you.
- Chronic kidney disease. Radically changing your body chemistry is usually tolerated by healthy kidneys but never by unhealthy kidneys.
- A history of eating disorders. Such as bulimia, anorexia, pica or binge-eating disorder.
- Porphyria. A group of diseases in which there is a build up of porphyrins causing issues with your skin or nervous system. Most porphyrin disorders are inherited.
- Familial hyperlipidemia. This is an inherited defect which causes a very high LDL (bad cholesterol) level and a very low HDL ( good cholesterol)