What about inflammation? What happens to my body when I eat 800 calories of pancakes, syrup and hash browns, and start to sweat, feel sick and get tired?
This is related to the reason people think low carb diets work. Low carb dieting sends stress hormones way up, because cortisol is necessary to break down proteins into needed sugars. People tend to feel pretty good at first in this state. The problem is it totally breaks down into bad endocrine and metabolic problems after two or three years. Nobody debates that ketogenic diets seem to work for weight loss in the short run; the issue is that in the long run they're a health disaster.
From the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide:
"Don't be so refined. The bolus of blood sugar that accompanies a meal or snack of highly refined carbohydrates (white bread, white rice, French fries, sugar-laden soda, etc.) increases levels of inflammatory messengers called cytokines. Eating whole-grain bread, brown rice, and other whole grains smooths out the after-meal rise in blood sugar and insulin, and dampens cytokine production."
http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/What-you-eat-can-f...
So the claim that on a ketogenic diet your brain only needs 5% of energy from protein (to make glucose) and the rest from fats and ketones is wrong?
I don't know all the detailed claims ketogenic diet advocates make, all I know is that sustained low carbohydrate diets are damaging and a very bad idea. They do in fact work for fat loss in the short run, which is why so many people are buying into it.
Citations please?