Keto pills are a diet pill that is believed to set your body into a state of ketosis to aid rapid weight loss.
Ketosis is a metabolic method wherein your body burns fat instead of glucose for energy. This explains why the keto diet can help you lose weight. However, people can reach the ketosis state by consuming low-carb, high-fat foods — not keto pills.
So, do keto pills work? Can they propel your body into a ketogenic state and help you lose weight? Here’s what you need to understand.
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May mess your metabolism
When you’re in a hunger phase, your body utilizes ketones for energy in a similar way to how they’re used on a ketogenic diet — for fuel — and turns them into glucose.
In this phase, all those ketones also spur an increase in leptin (the hormone that makes you feel full) and a decrease in ghrelin (the hormone that stimulates your appetite). The more eminent your blood concentration of ketones, the less hungry you feel.
Why? Because in the history of human evolution, periodic hunger forced our bodies to adapt. That way, you would be less likely to eat something poisonous if there was no food available to you.
Here in the 21st century, using supplemental ketones to improve this biological process can reduce appetite. And this is possible by raising blood levels of ketone bodies.
What’s the catch? The ketogenic phase has been linked to increasing satiety hormones and reducing hunger hormones.
But once you’re gone from the keto diet after 30 days, the appetite-suppressing hormones will rise significantly from your baseline, which means that you’re likely to feel physically hungrier than you did before you began all of this dieting period.
They’re expensive
Electrolyte supplements produce sodium — sometimes up to 40% of your suggested daily intake for the day. Athletes usually use them for endurance training. But the keto-friendly ones claim to energize you and lessen the physical side effects of the keto flu.
The keto flu hosts flu-like traits such as aches, cramping, exhaustion, diarrhea, constipation, and general weakness. You usually experience this during the first four days of the keto diet.
It’s not an actual illness but the result of dehydration that happens when switching from glucose to fat for energy.
Low-carb diets generally have a diuretic impact within the first few days. Meaning, you spend more water and electrolytes (like potassium and sodium) in urine than usual. It occurs because your body is losing water as it converts to muscle glycogen for energy, and your body’s insulin levels decrease.
Anyone who intends to do Keto will need to drink extra fluids with electrolytes. More so when you are new to the diet. This is to help reduce the increased heart rate associated with dehydration.
Ketoburn and KetoLogic do give electrolytes in supplement form. They cost $40 and $100 per container, respectively. Aside from that, it can mess with your body’s biochemistry to the point of increasing your heart rate.
Can mess with digestion
Supplements and keto-friendly bulletproof coffee recipes also carry MCT oil. The acronym stands for medium-chain triglycerides. These are fat sources that take a shorter time to digest than the long-chain triglycerides typically found in fatty foods.
MCTs are considered “practical” because they go straight to your liver instead of circulating among different organs. This process needs more energy, which is why the oil is coined “fat-burning.”
So, what are the downsides? Well, many will encounter nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and constipation as a result. Plus, unless they’re guided to you by a physician, dietary supplements come with their safety gamble.
Get it from real foods instead
Keto supplements also incorporate essential nutrients like potassium, magnesium, and calcium. But they’re in much smaller quantities than you’d get in actual production.
And since the keto diet restricts fruits and vegetables, you will need to take multivitamins to get enough vitamins and minerals.
That’s the biggest concern in recommending keto diet pills, in general. Dietary supplements aren’t overseen by the FDA, meaning they’re not assessed for safety and efficacy.
Consuming specific nutrients in supplement versus food form can provoke oxidative stress. This can cause more harm than good to organ tissues.
The result: Heightened risk of chronic disease, including heart disease and some cancers.
Since there is insufficient data on long-term supplement dependence and ketogenic diets, it isn’t easy to know its effects on health and weight.
Selenium, for example, is an immune-boosting antioxidant seen in plant foods. But you may have Selenium deficiency if you’re on a keto diet. When left unmitigated, this can cause cardiomyopathy leading to heart failure.
In other words, it’s not just the ketogenic diet itself that has risks. The risks linked with the lack of vitamins and minerals through food sources give health professionals to pause when promoting Keto.
Kicking off ketosis
After about four days of an extremely low-carb diet, the body generates more keto acids or ketones in the blood than usual. That’s because fat cells are being delivered to the liver, where they’re converted into ketones that your body then utilizes for energy.
The idea behind keto pills is the same — to enhance levels of ketones in the blood. But instead of cutting out carbs, keto pills carry a crucial ingredient: medium-chain triglycerides (MCT).
When you consume MCTs while limiting your carb intake on a keto diet, your liver cuts them down into ketones. So, yes, under these conditions, MCTs can improve the ketones in your blood. And because MCTs have a smaller fatty acid chain than most other saturated and unsaturated fats, the body breaks them down more instantly.
However, this doesn’t indicate the MCTs in keto pills will help you lose weight. Keto pills can also do so much in increasing ketones in your blood. In comparison, the ketogenic diet gives additional advantages that keto pills lack.
Moreover, the FDA has recommended only five drugs for weight loss based on extensive research — and keto pills are not one of those drugs.
Supplements aren’t regulated
Like most dietary supplements, keto pills are regulated post-market. This indicates that the drugs, drinks, and powders are sold to customers without the oversight of safety or weight-loss claims.
Mind you, companies sometimes add caffeine to the supplements for an energy boost. However, it may be an annoyance to some people with caffeine sensitivities.
Too much caffeine for anyone can produce dizziness, headaches, anxiety, and dehydration. Caffeine can also intervene in your body’s ability to absorb calcium.
In the end, consuming the right foods is the best way to follow a ketogenic diet safely. “The outcomes of studies on keto supplements are irregular, and marginal at best,” says Gower.
5 “Best” Keto Diet Pills
Nutriana Keto Diet BHB Pills
These comprise BHB salts that help give energy to your muscles and brain. The ketone energy produced would work as a replacement for the carbohydrates in providing energy to the body.
These pills are most effective when supplemented by a Keto diet and mild exercise. BHB Pills are helpful because they are gluten-free and help sustain energy throughout the day. They help lessen the time taken to get into ketosis and fasten the weight loss process.
Moreover, these pills would assist you to stay less hungry and improve mental clarity. The ketone salts existing in the drugs can lead to nausea, diarrhea, and stomach discomfort during the first few days of consumption.
Pure Keto Diet Pills
These carry a perfect blend of all the necessary nutrients vital for the weight loss journey. It includes some unique herbal ingredients that would help your immune system. They kickstart the state of ketosis in the body and help set the weight loss process.
These diet pills turn fat into the primary energy supplier of the body. It also helps improve adiponectin levels that help in the regulation of metabolism. It has direct side effects such as heart pain and anxiety.
In addition, the presence of herbal ingredients in these pills might cause an eruption of allergies to different people.
Herbtonics Apple Cider Vinegar Keto Diet Pills
Apple cider vinegar is a vinegar produced from fermented apple juice and can be a core element in making keto pills. This helps fasten the weight loss journey. These vinegar pills carry natural ingredients and have no artificial flavors or chemicals.
It helps remove the excess fatty compound in the body, resulting in mental clarity and optimize cognitive capacity. They cleanse the consumer’s body by flushing away all the unprocessed waste and hence, decrease bloating.
However, these pills can cause throat soreness due to the acid present in the pills. In addition, the long term intake of these pills can upset the body’s acid-base balance.
Vitamin Bounty Keto BHP Exogenous Ketone Diet Pills
If you unintentionally eat something that’s not keto-friendly, you can end up for exogenous ketone pills to keep your body in ketosis. The BHB salts present in the ketone pills would give energy to the muscles and brain. These pills increase mood and energy levels. The appetite is subdued, and thus, inflammation decreases.
On the other hand, when too many ketones store up in the body, it creates an acid, a byproduct of burning fats. This makes the blood acidic, damaging the liver, kidneys, and brain.
VitaRaw Exogenous Keto Diet Pills
These are another class of exogenous keto pills. They are three times more potent than any other medications accessible in the market and have proven to be more effective. They hold 2100mg Keto BHB, which is way higher than any similar product.
They don’t make a proper keto diet to work effectively. It would give the consumer desired effects despite any diet followed, unlike other keto pills. They not only drop fat from your body but also preserve muscles.
However, they can lead to Keto flu and may result in nausea. Moreover, these can frequently lead to bad breath, which can be very discomforting.
Side Effects and Quick Solutions
Every good thing works alongside damages. This diet plan for weight loss does touch down to some definite drawbacks.
Excessive thirst, frequent urination, confusion, anxiety, irritability, tachycardia, lightheadedness and shakiness, sweating, and chills are some of the short-term side effects of a ketogenic diet.
Keto Flu isn’t precisely an illness, so it isn’t infectious or toxic, but it sure can be stressful. It’s temporary, fortunately, and soon you’re going to feel better again and will have more stamina than you had before the diet began.
There are some specific steps you have to take while dealing with any of the side-effects mentioned above:
- Increase the consumption of salt and water as both are more responsible for most keto flu issues.
- Try to take more fat to reduce the side effects. In a well-balanced keto diet, you can eat for some hours and have lots of energy to ensure that you won’t be hungry after a meal.
- Try to undergo the keto diet for several more days until the symptom passes. Your body will take time to adjust to the new change, and these symptoms are only temporary.
- Reduce your exercise. Please do not overload your body when it’s already stressed. Try to take it easy for the first several weeks and rejuvenate until you feel the keto flu.
- Have keto snacks like hard-boiled eggs in case you feel starving between or post your meals. Stressing over the proportion of the food you’re having might even raise the symptoms or worsen them more.
Prescription weight-loss medication
The Food and Drug Administration has recommended five prescription drugs for long-term weight loss. These are based on an analysis of their safety and effectiveness:
- Saxenda (Liraglutide). A 2017 review written in Obesity Science & Practice discovered that obese participants lost weight across five trials when taking liraglutide. On average, participants using liraglutide lost 5% to 10% of their body weight. However, some dropped out of the trials because of adverse side effects, including nausea and vomiting.
- Belviq (Lorcaserin). Studies have found that people who consume one 10-milligram tablet twice a day for 12 weeks may lose at least 5% of their body weight. Side effects include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, urinary tract infections, back pain, and headaches. Researchers have advised that people might lose less weight on lorcaserin than liraglutide.
- Contrave (Naltrexone-bupropion). Naltrexone and bupropion are different medications. Researchers have recently found that a pill that connects the two can support weight loss more than either drug separately. However, many of the studies on this pill’s weight-loss results were sponsored by the manufacturer.
- Xenical and Alli (Orlistat). Researchers have found that people with a BMI of 27 kg/m or greater who take orlistat for more than two months could drop 12.3 pounds on average. Interestingly, one 2012 study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics discovered that overweight soldiers who took orlistat for six months lost more fat mass. However, it doesn’t have much lean mass compared with the placebo group.
- Qsymia (Phentermine-topiramate). This treatment seems to help people drop the most weight out of the five medications. In a 2011 study published in The Lancet, almost half of participants who took one pill containing 15 milligrams of phentermine and 92 milligrams of topiramate daily dropped more than 10% of their total body weight after 56 weeks. Common side effects involved constipation, insomnia, and dysgeusia, a distorted sense of taste.
Final Thoughts
Weight loss is personal, individualized, and different from every single one of us. That said, any plan that limits real, whole foods and requires nutrient supplementation comes at a cost.
Cutting back on these nutritious foods in any way for weight loss can produce myths about what it looks like to eat a more efficient, balanced diet.
People often follow different diets and fitness regimes like the Ketogenic Diet to obtain your desired weight goals.
Approach weight loss first by examining your lifestyle. Eat more veggies, fruit, seafood, and whole grains. Prioritize unsaturated fats that are good for you and consider inclusive versus exclusive.
There’s no need to substitute meals with powders when you can make healthier eating habits instead.