It’s official... Per a recent survey of dietitians, the low-carb, high fat, moderate protein keto diet is, yet again, the most popular diet in the United States.
And it’s easy to see why. For many people, ketogenic diets can deliver a wide variety of health benefits. Whether you’re looking to boost your wellness, manage your weight, dial in your cognitive function or just get better sleep, a keto diet may help you reach those goals.
Here’s a short list of potential big health wins courtesy of keto:
- Increases energy
- Supercharges weight loss efforts
- Stops cravings
- Lowers your triglycerides
- Balances your blood sugar
- Improves your cholesterol levels
But before you race out to the grocery store to stock up on grass fed butter and MCT oil, know this:
All of the potential keto benefits will only show up if your body can properly manage the keto diet. That calls for a huge assist from your gut microbiome – the trillions of bacteria that live in your gut…
Because if your gut microbiome is out of balance, your keto diet may not work the way you want it to… despite all the effort, sacrifice, and willpower you pour into it.
How Keto Diets Work
The primary thrust of a keto diet is to train your body to use fat instead of sugar for energy – a state known as ketosis. This shift in fuel sources can do wonders for your wellness and weight… but only if you do it the right way.
There are plenty of variations of the keto diet, but the basics involve eating:
- Mostly fats (75-85%)
- Some protein (10-20%)
- Minimal carbs (around 5%)
For a successful keto diet, you need to focus on high quality foods to get the maximum nutritional value from everything you eat. And when you’re not eating plenty of fruits and veggies – many of which fall into the carb category – it’s tough to reap all the health benefits of plant foods such as:
- Essential vitamins and minerals
- Antioxidants
- Polyphenols (plant chemicals that support wellness)
- Fiber – especially prebiotic fiber
That’s why you need a healthy gut microbiome – to get the most out of every bite you eat.

The Keto Diet and Your Gut Microbiome
Your gut microbiome contains both beneficial probiotic bacteria and harmful pathogenic bacteria. In a healthy gut, probiotics vastly outnumber pathogens – and those probiotics deliver countless crucial health benefits.
But when your gut is out of balance, and pathogens outnumber probiotics, your gut will be in a state of dysbiosis – and that can undermine your health and weight management.
On top of that, dysbiosis can damage your gut barrier, which can result in a condition known as leaky gut – where harmful toxins and pathogens leak out of your gut and into your bloodstream.
There’s no shortage of things can shift the balance in your gut microbiome… anything from antibiotics to stress to what you eat for dinner. And the jury’s still out on whether the keto diet acts as friend or foe when it comes to the bacterial balance of your gut microbiome.
That’s because there’s some conflicting evidence regarding how a keto diet affects your gut.
👉 Keto/Gut Health Pros:
Following a keto diet may help reduce l