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Jane Conrad <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I found an intersting web site
>http://www.healthyideas.com/healing/living/hipro.html regarding the
>drawbacks, and personally, high protein diets create a state called
>ketosis, which is dangerous,

I checked out the site and it is just riddled with misinformation. The
people writing the page clearly have never spent any time in a lowcarb
group finding out what such diets do and don't do. But since this is
off-topic to this list, let me concentrate on the misinformation posted to
the list. The site, and you, are confusing ketosis with ketoacidosis.
Here's an article written by the listowner of the Technical Lowcarb
Discussion List explaining this:

From: [log in to unmask] (Dean Esmay)
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 00:04:32 GMT

Ketones are the byproduct of fat metabolization.  The primary forms of
ketones are acetoacetate and beta-hydroxybutyrate.  The only -- the ONLY --
way your body can burn fat at all is by creating ketones and circulating
them in the bloodstream.  They are how fat is burned.  If there are no
ketones circulating in your veins and arteries, this means you are not
burning fat as fuel.

A state of ketosis is one in which there is an unusually large number of
ketones in circulation.  It's usually noted as "ketosis" when the body
starts to dispose of large amounts of excess--that is, unneeded--ketones in
the urine.

Medical practitioners routinely check for ketones in the blood of diabetic
patients, but this is only because the sudden appearance of ketones,
-absent a logical explanation-, is an important warning sign of a state
called ketoacidosis.  This is a state wherein the body is circulating huge,
out of control levels of glucose and also huge, out of control levels of
ketones.  This state can be deadly.

There is a bad tendency to assume that this is because the ketones are
dangerous.  But think--your body's normal #1 fuel source is blood
sugar--glucose.  But a state of diabetes is a state wherein you have lots
of glucose.  So does this mean glucose is dangerous?  Of course not.  So
why would anyone assume ketones are dangerous?

People on ketogenic diets--diets which cause an increase in ketones in the
bloodstream--never reach the high levels of ketones seen in diabetics in
ketoacidosis.  Nor do they get the dangerously high levels of glucose which
also accompanies ketoacidosis.

Instead, dietarily-induced ketosis is a state wherein the body has less
available glucose than it's normally used to.  So to make up for the energy
deficit produced by having less glucose around, it starts circulating
somewhat more ketones than it normally does, in order to reach a balance.

To say that this state is "unnatural" is a little strange.  The body is
designed to do this when it needs to do it.  There is not any evidence that
this state is "dangerous."  There are no case reports or clinical studies
indicating people becoming seriously ill from dietarily-induced ketosis.
Some people have a temporary feeling of nausea or fatigue when they first
go on a diet that causes ketosis, but every study on ketogenic diets has
shown that these effects do -not- happen to everyone and that they go away
in fairly short order.  I note that one can became nauseated from excess
exercise, especially if you haven't been working out lately and suddenly
push yourself, but no one suggests that this is because exercise is
unnatural and dangerous.

Ketogenic diets are often treated with a great deal of caution in clinical
settings because there is not a lot of long-term study on them, but the
fact is that they've been in use for more than 30 years now and no one's
ever documented a single case of serious illness caused as a result of
them.