What is a Dukan diet? What are its side-effects?

The Dukan diet was created by Dr. Pierre Dukan, a French physician in the 1970s and is a highly controversial and complicated diet. It primarily focuses on eating low calories, low-carbs, low fats and high amounts of protein. It should be noted that while his diet got several followers across the world Dr. Dukan who promoted it lost his medical license for breaching ethical regulations.

Working of Dukan Diet

The diet restricts many healthy foods as it is a low-carb and low-fat diet that includes mostly protein-rich foods. The main emphasis of this diet is on vegetables and proteins. Split into four phases its first two phases promote weight loss whereas the last two phases are aimed at helping the person stabilize and maintain normal weight.

According to Dukan, the true weight of a person is that weight which is realistic and healthy and which can be maintained all through his life.

Is this Dukan Diet effective?

In general, any diet that recommends an intake of fewer calories is going to cause weight loss. So people experience weight loss with this type of diet. Albeit not many studies have been done on its efficacy. But a few studies have shown that the Dukan diet if followed sincerely can lead to loss of around 33 pounds in 8 to 10 weeks.

Side-effects of Dukan Diet

While weight loss is the biggest advantage of the Dukan diet, it also comes with a few disadvantages. Since in this diet, you have to switch from carbohydrate burning to fat burning, ketones are produced that cause bad breath, nausea, headaches, fatigue, weakness, and insomnia. In the first and second phases, people feel so tired that they are asked to completely avoid any strenuous activity.

Lack of fruit and vegetables as well as whole grains in the long term leads to nutritional deficiencies that can cause cancer, heart attack, and premature aging. Dukan diet also sometimes causes constipation issues. It is now confirmed that a high intake of protein can lead to kidney issues and weakness in bones.

This diet is particularly unsuitable for those with eating disorders, high cholesterol, and kidney or gout disease.