I'm A Cardiologist & I Tried A Vegan Keto Diet. Here's What Happened

I have long been a proponent of plant-based diets. In fact, I have been following one for 42 years, 30 of which I have been a cardiologist. In particular, I have taught, written about, lectured on, and prescribed plant-based diets naturally low in fats and generally without oils.

First, let me explain what exactly "vegan keto" means. As you may know, a ketogenic diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet meant to shift your body into nutritional ketosis. Ketosis is the state in which the body preferentially burns fat over glucose for fuel. This is typically accomplished by eating fatty meat and fish, full-fat dairy, vegetable oils, and other high-fat foods.

I was first introduced to the idea of a vegan keto diet about five years ago by Carrie Diulus, M.D. As a spinal surgeon, Diulus performs long operations with the added challenge of managing type 1 diabetes. She told me that a plant-based diet high in fats and low in net carbs provided her excellent diabetic control and stable blood sugar for hours at a time.

Diulus is not alone in her praise of the vegan keto diet. There are other nutrition researchers that tout the benefits of a high-fat plant diet, particularly when cycled on and off (although Diulus selects this pattern continuously). For example, David Jenkins, M.D., Ph.D., famous for creating the glycemic index, developed and studied an "Eco-Atkins" diet. In the study, he compared a low-carbohydrate, high-fat plant-based diet (the "Eco-Atkins") with a control diet, which was a high-carb lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. The study reported that after six months, those on the high-fat "Eco-Atkins" diet saw more weight loss and better cholesterol measurements than the control group.

Over the past two years, I have followed a vegan keto diet for several weeks at a time. During this time, I have had the most advanced heart and carotid artery imaging and advanced laboratory studies done and have no plaque in my arteries. I also confirmed that my body had entered ketosis with both urine and breath measurements.

Overall, I am split. I still strongly defend high complex-carbohydrate diets that are naturally low in fat calories. This type of diet has been shown to prevent many chronic health conditions. In fact, the Okinawan diet, from one of the Blue Zones of longevity, also follows this dietary pattern with stunningly low rates of chronic disease.

However, for the healthier person who has hit a roadblock in weight loss or is looking for a few days of a different diet plan, exploring a higher fat plant diet emphasizing mainly plant foods is likely fine and may ultimately be proved to be healthy.