Ketoacidosis and Keto Flu
This is a paper by the NIH in the USA detailing a specific case of a diabetic individual who was diagnosed with Ketoacidosis after doing some hard fasting and Keto: Starvation Ketoacidosis due to the Ketogenic Diet and Prolonged Fasting – A Possibly Dangerous Diet Trend
It’s worth a read because it goes into detail about the indivduals personal health condition and circumstances.
Ketoacidosis is a state that your body can get into when the ketone levels in your blood are too high. It’s a condition that can affect, primarily, diabetics.
As with any technical diet, you are directly affecting your metabolism for some specific purpose, be it medical or cosmetic. Personally I have never experienced anything like the above, but I also am not diabetic. I would always advise caution before trying any diet full on and if you do have an underlying health condition that affects your blood sugar consult a professional, or if you think you might be developing one and want to stem it, be careful to “test the water” with a low carb diet. Don’t go at it too extreme, as the person detailed in the above study appeared to be doing.
Everybody is different. If you’re starting, give your body time to adjust and then gradually test out different things. I would not recommend staying in a state of Ketosis forever, it’s probably most healthy to switch between ketones and glucose as time goes on, most likely, it’s how our body is supposed to function.
Keto flu
When you start Keto, if you’ve been living on a high carb diet, you are going to experience, simply, glucose withdrawal symptoms. This is the same as when you fast for the first time, after a few days, you might get a headache, some nausea, fatigue and other “withdrawaly” type symptoms. I did, and I would recommend to most people just to endure it (possible caveat for diabetics). Your body is adapting to burning fat, this may take some time but afterwards you will feel fine. I have done many intermittent fasts and low calorie periods and I don’t get these symptoms any more.