The carnivore diet — a no-carb, all-meat approach to eating — is gaining popularity as a way to lose weight and improve health. This popular diet has gained traction in the recent years especially among fitness enthusiasts and influencers. Interestingly, podcaster Joe Rogan is also one of its most vocal supporters.
However, a recent study has highlighted the possible long-term risks of fad diets, such as the carnivore diet, which lack scientific evidence and may contribute to metabolic imbalances that increase kidney stone risk. The findings of the study were published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition journal.
The study presented the case of a 61-year-old man, initially sought medical assistance because he had a personal and paternal family history of kidney stones, gout, hypertension, coronary artery disease, and diabetes.
His first stone developed when he was 45, after which he was asymptomatic until 55. However, from that time until he was 58, he passed approximately three stones each year, with them becoming more painful and difficult to pass over time.
According to the study, the patient changed his diet to a 90% meat-based diet after watching a popular YouTube video advocating for the carnivore diet as a gout treatment. By age 68, he had stopped following a carnivore diet, had no more stones, and did not experience any urological symptoms. Urine analysis revealed he had an increased risk of developing all three major types of kidney stones — calcium oxalate, calcium phosphate, and uric acid — with levels “consistent with stone growth.”
They pointed to the patient’s results as evidence of the “potential hazards of the carnivore diet,” noting that it creates the “optimal environment” for kidney stone development.
“The lack of literature on this and other fad diets’ safety and efficacy should be a cause for alarm among physicians,” the doctors wrote. They recommended a fiber- and carbohydrate-rich diet to support gut bacteria and help prevent kidney stone formation.
A year after quitting the diet, the doctors reported that the patient was kidney stone-free, New York Post reported.
A study report by New York Post revealed that doctors have raised concerns about the diet’s nutritional gaps, and now doctors from the Indiana University School of Medicine are warning that the carnivore diet could also increase the risk of painful kidney stones. The side-effects of the diet also need to do discussed.
When Rogan first tried the diet for a month in 2020, the podcasting giant said he lost weight and saw significant improvements in his energy levels and cognitive performance.
“There’s really only one ‘bad’ thing, and that thing is diarrhea,” Rogan wrote in a 2020 Instagram post. “I’ve come to accept that if I keep going with this diet it’s just a matter of time before we lose a battle, and I fill my undies like a rainforest mudslide overtaking a mountain road.”
The medical community remains divided on the carnivore diet, New York Post reported.