According to Michaels, the high-fat, low-carb diet ignores the reality that “your macro molecules, are literally made up of protein, fat, carbohydrates, nucleic acids.”

And ditching any of the three macronutrients – protein, fat or, in this case, carbs – starves the cells, she said, threatening the body’s overall health.

“To make a very long story short: avoid the keto diet. Common sense,” she told Women’s Health.

Dr Eric Kossoff, director of the Child Neurology Residency Program at Johns Hopkins, told USA TODAY in 2017 how the diet’s carb starvation forces the body to break down fat, but suggested most adherents don’t fully understand the implications.

Philip Goglia, a nutritionist who claims Kim Kardashian and Kanye West as clients, doubted the keto diet in the same report, saying its success depends on how one’s specific body uses fats, proteins and carbs.

“When in a state of metabolic ketosis, the body will shed pounds rapidly,” Goglia said, noting the diet is “used for temporary but quick weight loss”.

Bryant Stamford, a kinesiology professor at Hanover college in Indiana, said in a column for the Courier Journal that the diet can foster short-term success but is often unsustainable. He always asks adherents to email him back after they had been on it for a year, he said.

“In all the many years I have been doing this, and with regard to all kinds of bizarre diets, not one person has ever contacted me a year later.”

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