Tag: ketogenic diet

Your glass of wine may have more sugar in it than you think

kaitiscotland4 Comments
Photo by Max Vakhtbovych on Pexels.com

Adapted from BMJ 19 Feb 2022

The Alcohol Health Alliance UK has called for better labelling on alcoholic drinks after an analysis found that wine from the ten leading brands contained as much as 59g of free sugars per bottle.

None of the bottles had the sugar content on the label.

Government guidelines recommend no more than 30g of free sugars a day for an adult (My comment: they conveniently forget about starch though!) This is equivalent to 6 teaspoons of sugar and it can be contained in just two medium glasses of wine.

In February at the Low Carb USA conference in La Boca, Florida, Gemma Kochis, who is a qualified Sommelier, who works at Keto-Mojo, presented information for those on a ketogenic diet who would still like to drink wine.

She says that for the most part, wines with the highest alcohol content will tend to have the highest sugar content. If you want to drink wine and stay in ketosis, you will need to test your blood ketones about 2 hours after trying a new wine.

In general she recommends wines that grown in cooler climates, mainly old world compared to new world. She thinks that you have to stick below 12.5% alcohol wines and that even then you may have to go lower.

Red wines that can be fruity and have a low alcohol content include Beaujolais and Gamay.

Reisling, Vinho Verde and Muscadet are good white wine choices and Champagne Brut is a good sparkling wine choice.

Using a ketogenic diet to treat binge eating and food addiction

kaitiscotland3 Comments

Adapted from : Treating binge eating and food addiction symptoms with low-carbohydrate
Ketogenic diets: a case series

Matthew Carmen1 , Debra Lynn Safer2, Laura R. Saslow1, Tro Kalayjian3 , Ashley E. Mason4 , Eric C. Westman5 and Shebani Sethi Dalai2*

Many patients with obesity and comorbid binge eating symptoms present with the desire to lose weight. Although some studies suggest that dietary restriction can exacerbate binge eating, others show dietary restriction is associated with significant reductions in binge eating. The effect of a particular type of dieting on binge eating, the ketogenic diet (a high fat, moderate protein, very low carbohydrate diet), is not known.


We report on the feasibility of a low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet initiated by three patients
(age 54, 34, and 63) with obesity (average BMI 43.5 kg/m2 ) with comorbid binge eating and food addiction symptoms.

All patients tolerated following the ketogenic diet (macronutrient proportion 10% carbohydrate, 30% protein, and 60% fat; at least 5040 kJ) for the prescribed period (e.g., 6–7 months) and none reported any major adverse effects.

Patients reported significant reductions in binge eating episodes and food addiction symptoms including cravings and lack of control as measured by the Binge-Eating Scale, Yale Food Addiction Scale, or YaleBrown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale modified for Binge Eating, depending on the case.

Additionally, the patients lost a range of 10–24% of their body weight. Participants reported maintenance of treatment gains (with respect to weight, binge eating, and food addiction symptoms) to date of up to 9–17 months after initiation and continued adherence to diet.


This is the first report to demonstrate the feasibility of prescribing a ketogenic diet for patients with obesity who report binge eating and food addiction symptoms. Further research should seek to reproduce the observed effects in controlled trials as well as to explore potential etiologies.