Is Erythritol And Keto Safe For My Cardiovascular Health?

Short answer: yes, actually. Without a doubt.

Longer answer: found in the FB Live below. It’s only 16 minutes long and I talk about the following:

• Is it worse to have diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease than having erythritol?

• SO many studies are done to promote both sides of controversial topics, how do you know what to believe?

• What is erythritol, even?

• My thoughts on the topic as a functional registered dietitian and adjunct professor of nutrition at GWU

Let’s look at the bigger picture about healthiness in general

I’d like to make some general points about what a healthy diet is that will always be true, no matter what study is written. This is based on my years as a functional dietitian and having trialed MANY different types of diets (personally and in my practice) and assessing the lab results after changes are made.

1. No matter what “diet” you follow, you need to do the hard work of eating vegetables and whole foods you cook from scratch. You can follow the Mediterranean diet, but if you eat too many fruits, grains and beans you could develop type 2 diabetes! You can follow the ketogenic diet by eating lots of burgerless buns from McDonald’s, but those foods are inflammatory and NOT conducive to health in any way! There is no easy way out of any food plan, being healthy takes effort.

2. Eliminating sugar and decreasing carbohydrates in your diet will always be what reduces blood glucose levels, encourages weight loss, improves cholesterol balance, decreases systemic inflammation, improves brain function, balances hormones and increases energy. You don’t have to be keto to do this, I’m not an RD who recommends one diet to everyone.

3. If you’re concerned about cholesterol health, find a doctor who will run an NMR lipoprotein profile which will give a much more accurate picture of cholesterol/cardiovascular health. Learn more about this panel by clicking here. You’ll also want to have him run a homocysteine and HsCRP labs which will really complete the picture. CRP is a general inflammatory marker and if homocysteine is low it can lead to heart disease.

4. Consider taking supplements to support cardiovascular health mentioned below. Be sure to get high quality product from a site like Emerson Ecologics. You can use my 20% link here, or buy them on Amazon.

   1. Methylated B complex - helps lower homocysteine, support nervous system health, supports cardiovascular health

   2. Magnesium citrate or Magnesium glycinate - relaxes vasculature which helps lower blood pressure, reduce palpitations, relax all muscles and prevents cramping

   3. Fish oil - helps keep vasculature elastic and healthy instead of brittle and stiff which increases blood pressure and promotes plaque

   4. Nitric oxide - increases blood flow by relaxing blood vessels.

Bottom Line ☝️: you still need to eat a balanced diet of high quality foods to be healthy! Cardiovascular health is influenced by so many physical (and emotional) factors which all need to be considered. Find yourself a functional medicine health care professional that will run the proper labs, assess your health at the root-cause level, and will make the best recommendations for returning to health. You can search those terms in Google or go to IFM’s website (it’s a limited list but a good start).