Rachel Clare says Low-carb diets can be damaging to the human body.

The human body creates keto bodies which break down fat reserves instead of carbohydrates.

Ketogenic diets can be helpful for people suffering from epilepsy, however.

Business Insider UK spoke with professional dietitian Rachel Clare about the dangers of ketogenic diets.

Full transcript below

Rachel Clare: So the ketogenic diet is when you have next to no carbohydrates in your diet and what that means is that because your body isn’t using energy from carbohydrates it’s breaking down fats to give it the energy that it needs.

When you break down the fats in your body, it releases ketone bodies and so when your body’s breaking down more and more fat it produces these ketone bodies and so it means that somebody can be said to be in a “ketogenic state.”

In some small medical cases, the ketogenic diet is actually used for benefit.

So there’s some bits of evidence to show that being on a ketogenic diet can help people who suffer from epilepsy for example.

But for the general public the ketogenic diet is quite dangerous, your body when it’s producing ketone bodies it’s not in a normal state and so actually for the general public, the ketogenic diet is quite damaging.

Produced by Jasper Pickering. Camera by David Ibekwe. Research by Fraser Moore.