While many people blindly follow health trends without considering their long-term effects on metabolism, it is important to just know what is best for your body
Most people, usually youngsters, love to experiment with their diet with a common goal of losing weight. According to experts, most of these diets do help in weight management, but only for a short while and can be extremely harmful in the long run. While many people blindly follow health trends without considering their long-term effects on metabolism, digestion, and overall health, it is important to just know what is best for your body.
Nutritionists say there are three types of most dangerous diets that can harm your health in the long run. These include:
Extremely low carb diets
A low-carb diet either limits or eliminates carbohydrates—often known as carbs - found in grains, starchy vegetables, and fruit. A low-carb diet is mostly focused on foods that are packed with protein and fat.
People follow the low-carb diet mostly for weight loss. While some do have health benefits beyond weight loss, like lowering your risk of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, they can cause adverse effects like:
- Constipation
- Headache
- Muscle cramps
If you severely limit carbs in your body, they will break down fat into ketones for energy - a condition known as ketosis. It causes various side effects like bad breath, headache, fatigue, and weakness. While it is not clear as to what kind of possible long-term health risks a low-carb diet may pose, in the long term, it may cause you to have too little of some vitamins or minerals and to have digestive issues.
While most Indians eat carbs like rice and wheat as staple foods, completely shifting away from them is difficult to maintain and can cause binge eating when people revert to their old eating habits. Also, a high intake of saturated fats from ghee, butter, and cheese elevates cholesterol levels and increases the risk of heart disease as well.
Liquid and detox diets
Many people follow juice cleansing or soup diets for detoxification with an aim to cleanse the blood and eliminate harmful toxins from their bodies. However, according to experts, while it is not entirely clear how they do this, no specific compounds can help eliminate these or if they even work.
Nutritionists say liquid diets mostly lack sufficient protein and other essential fatty acids, leading to muscle loss and weakened immunity. Fruit juices also spike blood sugar due to their high fructose content, leading to energy crashes and increased cravings. Also, only drinking liquids for a long time can put your body into starvation mode, slowing down metabolism and making it harder to lose weight sustainably.
Most weight loss in detox diets is water weight, which returns as soon as normal eating resumes.
Extremely high protein diet
While it is extremely essential to consume protein, excessive amounts, especially from certain sources, pose health risks, including kidney strain, increased risk of heart disease, and potential cancer risks. High-protein diets, especially those that are loaded with animal protein, put a heavy strain on your kidneys, worsening kidney function.
Also, if you eat red and processed meats, it can cause a high risk of heart disease due to high saturated fat and cholesterol intake.
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