Lots of headlines lately similar to this one from the NY Post:



the most fascinating thing about this non-peer reviewed observational study is that not only is it not peer reviewed, not only is it observational and based on self-reported data, but its definition of “keto” or “keto-like” diets is hilariously wrong. It counts as such a diet any diet that derives 25% or fewer of calories from carbs.

To put that in perspective, an actual keto diet derives fewer than 5% (often 2-3%) of calories from carbs. If people want to test the results of a keto diet I’m all for it. But don’t test something else (that wouldn’t result in any ketosis at all) and call it “keto” when it violates every principle of keto.

This is a perpetual problem with diet studies. They are based on what data is relatively easy to get and not on testing the actual diets people follow. This would perhaps be less of a problem if they didn’t claim to be testing the actual thing. The same thing applies to so called “fasting” studies. They don’t study fasting at all: they study extremely low calorie diets and assume the results apply equally to fasting. Super annoying. There is enough bad information out there; no need to add to it.