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Doctor Mike Hansen - Keto-Like Diets May Increase Risk of Heart Diseas

Thumbnail of the video “Doctor Mike Hansen - Keto-Like Diets May Increase Risk of Heart Diseas”
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Author: Doctor Mike Hansen
Categories: Health Nutrition
Tags: health, nutrition
Views: 3 · Last viewed: 2026-10-17 04:53 UTC

Short Summary

Main recommendation: Judge a keto or low-carb diet by its food quality, not by the diet label, because processed versions raise insulin and inflammation while unprocessed versions do not. Dr. Hansen discusses a media article (not the actual study, which he couldn't access) describing research linking a low-carb, high-fat, keto-like diet to higher LDL and more than twice the risk of major cardiovascular events, noting it was observational and only shows association.

Key Points

  • The reported study followed 305 people on a low-carb, high-fat diet (45% of calories from fat, 25% from carbohydrates) against about 1,200 on a standard diet, using UK Biobank data over at least a decade.
  • After an average 11.8-year follow-up and adjustment for diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and smoking, the low-carb group had more than twice the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stenting-requiring artery blockages, heart attacks, strokes, and peripheral arterial disease.
  • The speaker argues LDL is not one thing: Dr. Hansen explains that, in his view, about 80% of LDL is large buoyant (type A) LDL, which he considers roughly neutral, while about 20% is small dense (type B) LDL, which he says is the truly harmful kind that converts to triglycerides.
  • Inflammation from processed food, not carbohydrate restriction alone, is presented as the mechanism that drives insulin resistance and leptin resistance.
  • The video stresses that the study is observational and only shows association, and that individual responses vary widely.

Details Worth Noting

  • Concrete instructions: Prefer unprocessed keto foods such as lean chicken, a little unprocessed beef, seeds, nuts, and avocados.
  • Concrete instructions: Avoid highly processed meats.
  • Concrete instructions: Get fat from unsaturated sources like avocados, tofu, nuts, seeds, and olive oil, and limit saturated fat from butter, coconut oil, whole-fat milk, cheese, and mayonnaise.
  • Concrete instructions: Ask for an apolipoprotein B test and triglyceride levels (150 mg/dL cutoff for elevated) alongside hemoglobin A1C, insulin, and HOMA-IR, since standard lab LDL does not separate LDL types.
  • Concrete instructions: Keep carbohydrates low only if the food is unprocessed; whole beans are presented as healthy, while refried beans are not the same.
  • The keto diet limits carbohydrates to 20 to 50 grams a day, and a medium banana or apple (about 27 grams) can use up most of that allowance.
  • Fiber, both soluble and insoluble, is highlighted as important for slowing insulin response, promoting fullness, and reducing systemic inflammation, which many low-carb dieters miss.
  • Intermittent fasting and unprocessed eating are presented as other ways to keep insulin low, alongside keto.

Bottom Line

The keto label alone does not determine heart risk; the reported findings depend on whether the diet is built on processed or unprocessed foods and on which fats and lab markers are being measured.