A case series recently co-authored by Dr. Tro Kalayjian, DO, suggests hypertriglyceridemia can be reversed through the implementation of a very-low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting.
The manuscript is entitled Reversal of severe hypertriglyceridemia with intermittent fasting and a very-low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet: a case series, and was published July 27, 2020, in Current Opinion in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Obesity. The other principal authors include Subrat Das, MD, Jordan McCreary, and Shariq Shamim, MD, FACC.
In this case series, two patients with severe hypertriglyceridemia had the condition reversed using the “unconventional dietary methods” of a very-low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting. The manuscript summary said “although anecdotal, these cases point to a critical lack of flexibility in current dietary guidelines that hinder their application in clinical practice.”
The case series stands in stark contrast to recommendations currently being made by the American Heart Association (AHA), the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the National Lipid Association (NLA).
As noted in the manuscript:
“Current guidelines from the AHA/ACC recommend the initiation of a very-low-fat diet to treat persistently elevated triglycerides, whereas the National Lipid Association argues that a very-low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet is contraindicated in severe hypertriglyceridemia. In contrast, we report resolution of two cases of severe hypertriglyceridemia with implementation of very-low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets and intermittent fasting.”
“The recommendations of the AHA, ACC, and NLA are based on ‘expert opinion’ with scant evidence,” said Dr. Kalayjian. “This paper showed one of the biggest drops in triglycerides ever documented for a lifestyle intervention. I think this should be enough to move the needle. We want these organizations to be more flexible when it comes to low carb and intermittent fasting approaches.”
“At some point, when they review their data, they will have to look at our work. Even though it’s just two patients, it’s more than what they have, which relies solely on expert opinion. We took the exact patients they said not to do this with, and the intervention worked miraculously.”
The news was highlighted in a great article on the Diet Doctor website, and the case series has been getting a tremendous deal of attention over the past week, both on social media and from people looking up and sharing the case series online.
Less than two weeks after the being published, the case series has already been shared more any other in the history of the journal, according to the Altmetric Attention Score.
