The South Beach Diet

The Danger Of Ketosis Generated By South Beach Diet Phase One

By Joel Fuhrman M.D.


The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) noted a 30 percent increase in sudden cardiac death in young women which they could not explain at first, killing over 3000 women (aged 15 – 34) during the time when the high protein ketogenic diets became popular in the last 10 years. (Footnote 4)

In the 1960’s and 70’s liquid protein diets were associated with similar deaths and finally fell out of favor.  Now, evidence also suggests that ketogenic diets not only create metabolic derangement conducive to cardiac conduction abnormalities but have also been shown in the medical literature to cause a pathological enlargement of the heart called cardiomyopathy. (Footnote 5) 

The South Beach diet is so irresponsible because it has three phases and Agatston encourages the readers to go on and off the induction phase multiple times as a means of controlling their weight as they start to gain weight back on stage two and stage three.  This not only repeatedly  increases the risk of potassium loss, electrolyte shifts and a life-threatening irregular heart beat but it also increases the risk of having a standard heart attack.  continue reading...