Joy Kong, MDRegenerative Medicine Physician, Educator, and Entrepreneur

What They Don’t Tell You About Keto and Your Heart Health

16 Oct 2025 · 1 min

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0:45

Joy Kong, MD discusses a study of 100 people on extreme low-carb diets who had coronary CT scans before and after one year. The study found increased arterial calcification, despite headlines suggesting otherwise. The research lacked a control group and wasn't randomized.

Questions this video answers

100 people

"lean mass hyper responders" (extremely high fat, low carb diet adherents)

CT (coronary CT) scans of heart arteries

One year (baseline and repeated at one year)

No — it was not randomized and had no separate control group; participants served as their own controls.

What happens when a person sticks to a carnivore diet?
There was a paper published about three months ago that incited a storm online. They took 100 people that they call lean mass hyper responders, people that eat an extremely high fat, low carb diet. They did a CT of their heart arteries and they repeated it at a year with the idea that we're going to prove that the keto diet, almost carnivore diet does not lead to plaque forming over 12 months. Well, that was the headline, but that wasn't the result. It was not a randomized study. There was no control group, but they.
Were testing one year prior and then a year later. Right, so that's a person serving as his own control.
You're right.
So they showed actually more calcification.
You saw that plaque was increasing over the 12 months more rapidly than expected. If you're going to do one of those diets that has essentially no data that it's good for the heart, make sure you're not putting yourself at risk.