Can long-term ketosis support healthy aging? The KetoSAge study set out to explore just that.
Ketosis Study Overview
The KetoSAge study followed 10 healthy, pre-menopausal women who had maintained nutritional ketosis (NK) for nearly four years. Researchers examined what happened when these women temporarily increased carbohydrate intake for 21 days to suppress ketosis. After those 21 days, they returned to their ketogenic lifestyle and looked at their metabolic markers again.
Key Findings
During the 21-day increased carbohydrate phase:
- Insulin levels increased by 78%
- IGF-1, a hormone linked to aging, rose by 83%
- Body fat increased by 1.67 kg (3.7 lbs)
- Insulin resistance more than doubled
- Ketone levels dropped 13.5-fold
- Leptin (satiety hormone) increased by 3.35-fold
- Total Osteocalcin increased by 1.63-fold
- Uncarboxylated Osteocalcin increased by 1.98-fold
- GLP-1 (Incretin Hormone) decreased by 2.4-fold
When returning to a higher carbohydrate diet, these metabolic markers began to trend towards higher insulin resistance and poorer metabolic health. This result was obtained after just 21 days of increased carbohydrates in their diets.
But here’s the good news: all biomarkers returned to baseline after just 21 days back on the ketogenic diet. These results suggest that metabolic flexibility and resilience are strong in those already adapted to a ketogenic diet.
What This Means
The study highlights how quickly metabolic health can decline when ketosis is interrupted—even in healthy individuals. It also shows how powerful and restorative a return to ketosis can be. This is great news for anyone who has “fallen off the ketosis” bandwagon.
Is Long-Term Ketosis Right for You?
The ketogenic diet is a healing diet that has been shown to be very effective at helping people to reverse prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes, heal blood sugar regulation issues and help people lose weight. I have seen many of my own health issues healed through this way of eating and have watched those around me heal their bodies also.
This way of eating turns on the fat burning machine and allows the body to burn off the stored fat for fuel. When using a whole food diet as your base, it removes many of the common allergen foods from the diet. Many people find they feel so much better when they just cut out all the grains that are so common in the Standard American Diet (SAD).
I would recommend a clean keto diet. We need to make sure that we are meeting our nutrient needs with whole foods that are properly prepared. The foods we eat and absorb are the basis of our health. If we are eating nutrient dense foods and digesting them properly, then our cells will be stronger and healthier too.
References
Volek, J. S., et al. (2024). Short-term suppression of long-term nutritional ketosis in healthy women induces reversible biomarkers of aging and metabolic dysfunction: The KetoSAge Study. Frontiers in Nutrition, 11, 10650498.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10650498/
Volek, J. S., et al. (2024). Short-term suppression of long-term nutritional ketosis in healthy women induces reversible biomarkers of aging and metabolic dysfunction: The KetoSAge Study. Frontiers in Nutrition, 11, 11274887.