Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a short-term ketogenic diet (KD) on body composition and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in overweight/obese Chinese females. Twenty young females [age: 21.0 ± 3.7 years, weight: 65.5 ± 7.7 kg, body mass index (BMI): 24.9 ± 2.7 kg⋅m–2] consumed 4 weeks of a normal diet (ND) as a baseline and then switched to a low-carbohydrate, high-fat, and adequate protein KD for another 4 weeks. With the same daily caloric intake, the proportions of energy intake derived from carbohydrates, proteins, and fats were changed from 44.0 ± 7.6%, 15.4 ± 3.3%, 39.6 ± 5.8% in ND to 9.2 ± 4.8%, 21.9 ± 3.4%, and 69.0 ± 5.4% in KD. The results showed that, without impairing the CRF level, the 4-week KD intervention significantly reduced body weight (−2.9 kg), BMI (−1.1 kg⋅m–2), waist circumference (−4.0 cm), hip circumference (−2.5 cm), and body fat percentage (−2.0%). Moreover, fasting leptin level was lowered significantly, and serum levels of inflammatory markers (i.e., TNF-α and MCP-1) were unchanged following KD. These findings suggest that KD can be used as a rapid and effective approach to lose weight and reduce abdominal adiposity in overweight/obese Chinese females without exacerbating their CRF.
Highlights
The incidence of obesity and related diseases is increasing rapidly and is a major health challenge faced by both developed and developing countries (Roberts and Barnard, 2005)
During the normal diet (ND) period, urinary ketosis was only detected on 0.2 ± 0.8% of the days, whereas during the ketogenic diet (KD) intervention, urinary ketosis was detected on 97.7 ± 3.9% of the days, suggesting that the subjects had good compliance with the KD
No changes in daily energy intake were observed in any of the weeks during ND and KD (p > 0.05), whereas the macronutrient compositions were significantly changed during the KD intervention when compared to the ND period with higher proportions of protein (p < 0.01) and fat (p < 0.01) intake and a lower proportion of carbohydrate intake (p < 0.01) during KD
Summary
The incidence of obesity and related diseases is increasing rapidly and is a major health challenge faced by both developed and developing countries (Roberts and Barnard, 2005). The conventional dietary guidelines for weight loss recommend low fat intake and calorie restriction resulting in a negative energy balance (Seagle et al, 2009), accumulating studies. In limited studies involving the Chinese population, researchers have put an overemphasis on calorie restriction (Gu et al, 2013; Liu et al, 2013; Sun et al, 2019), making it difficult to specify whether the low-carbohydrate diet-induced weight-loss effects are a result of reduction in energy intake or changes in macronutrient proportions. It is necessary to assess whether non-calorierestriction KD dietary patterns are useful and feasible for the large overweight/obese population in China
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