Episode 166: Dr. Leslyn Keith The Role of Ketogenic Diet in Treating Obesity and Lymphedema

In this episode of the 'Ketones and Coffee Podcast', host Lorenz has an enlightening conversation with Dr. Leslyn Keith, a certified Lymphedema and Clinical Doctorate holder in occupational therapy. Known for her extensive two-decade experience and specialty in treating lymphedema and obesity with a ketogenic diet, Dr. Keith talks about how a ketogenic lifestyle can remarkably improve individuals dealing with these conditions. 

Throughout the chat, she shares numerous transformative testimonials from patients whose lives have drastically improved, particularly in terms of pain reduction and quality of life, due to this dietary approach. In addition to discussing practical practices for maintaining the ketogenic diet, Dr. Keith also reveals information on an upcoming virtual conference on nutrition in lymphatic disorders, organized by 'Lipoedema Simplified.'

00:00 Introduction and Guest Presentation

01:00 The Ketogenic Diet and Lymphedema

02:22 Personal Journey into Ketogenic Diet

02:56 The Impact of Obesity on Lymphatic Disorders

04:07 The Role of Ketogenic Diet in Treating Obesity and Lymphedema

04:50 The Success Stories of Patients

08:05 The Science Behind Ketogenic Diet and Lymphatic Disorders

12:16 The Challenges and Misunderstandings of Lymphedema and Lipedema

17:57 The Importance of Healthcare Provider Support

21:31 The Impact of Ketogenic Diet on Patients' Lives

27:32 The Role of Carbohydrates and Fat in Lymphatic Disorders

38:12 The Success Stories of Patients (Continued)

43:08 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Connect with Dr. Leslyn Keith
leslynkeith.com

She is the author of two books (The Ketogenic Solution for Lymphatic Disorders and The Lymphatic Code) and published several articles about the efficacy of a ketogenic diet for lymphatic and fat disorders.

This Spring, our event will be April 12-14:  Keto & Beyond: Customizing Your Plan to Joyful Nutrition. Speakers include low carb clinicians Dr. Georgia Ede and Dr. Tro Kalayjian and lymphatic clinician Dr. Gabriele Faerber, who uses ketogenic nutrition with her patients.
https://learn.lipedema-simp

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Transcript

0:49

Hey guys, we got an interesting episode for you today. This was with Dr. Leslie Keith. What I love about this episode is Dr. Leslie shares, numerous transformative testimonials from patients whose lives has drastically improved. We discuss her extensive two decade experience and specialty in treating lymphedema and obesity with a ketogenic diet. I definitely learned so much on this episode. And I believe this episode has a potential to really help so many people's lives who suffers from these issues. Verlaine things stuff, guys. And without further ado, here's my interview with Dr. Lessen Keith.

Lorenz: 1:26

Hey guys, this is Lawrence and welcome back to the ketones and coffee podcast where we talk about creating a sustainable healthy lifestyle through the ketogenic diet. I'm Lawrence and I'm so grateful to have you join me on this journey. Every week I bring in guests who have the knowledge and experience to help you on your own journey to a better health. So excited for this guy. Stick around. Got an incredible guest today. Dr. Leslie Keith. She is a certified lymphedema and a clinical doctorate holder in occupational therapy and with a specialization in lymphedema and obesity. With over two decades of experience, Dr. Keith has dedicated her career to helping individuals manage lymphedema. and obesity through the use of the ketogenic diet. She brings a unique perspective to the discussion exploring how a ketogenic lifestyle can benefit individuals dealing with lymphedema and obesity. Dr. Leston Keith, welcome to the Ketones to Coffee podcast.

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 2:27

Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be part of your podcast and your journey to educate

Lorenz: 2:35

Awesome. You know, I am so thrilled to have you. And you know, let's jump in here into this discussion because lymphedema and keto, I have heard of lymphedema. Right. And keto for lymphatic disorders. But I really haven't had anyone on this show who really had done the science on the topic. So, also, you know, what a privilege to have Dr. Leslie Keith here who has conducted numerous studies during her pursuit of a doctorate that focused on this topic. So great stuff here. I know lymphedema is such a misunderstood, misunderstood issue. But I want to start with. where it all began for you. Your practice is very specific, right? Managing lymph, lymphatic disorders with the ketogenic diet. I want to know what sparked that interest, or is there any situation that led you into this field?

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 3:27

Oh yeah, definitely. Because I was trained to treat lymphatic disorders with very specific treatment using a special type of massage and bandaging people to provide compression to try to reduce the swelling. Show them exercises, all this kind of stuff. But as probably about a decade into doing this treatment for people with lymphatic disorders, I started noticing that by far, majority of my patients were obese. And not just obese, but a lot of them morbidly obese. So we're talking about BMI's of 40, 50, 60. And I had no idea what to do. I was on that under that paradigm of eat less, move more, you know, plant based, low fat diet, and nothing was working. And not only that, it made their lymphatic disorder worse. They became more swollen. And then the things that I was doing, which had been working on someone who wasn't obese. They weren't working so well, and there was a little bit of research out there, and it was saying that obesity made the lymphatic disorder worse, and so I thought, okay, so now we got to do something for the obesity, and I was at a loss, because it didn't seem like anything was working. As you know, we were just seeing more and more people become obese, and it seemed like they were trying hard, but nothing was working. So I started hearing about a ketogenic diet, and so my first thought was, Oh, we'll help them with the obesity using a ketogenic diet, and that will make the lymphedema better. I mean, that's what the little bit of research out there was saying that if we treat the obesity, the lymphedema will be better. So I started embarking on first using it myself because I'm not going to tell them to do something that I can't do myself. And, and my, I had a bunch of friends that they were all trying it too. What the heck? And so we found, okay, looks like this is doable. It's actually very delicious. Let's see if we can get people to do it. And so I just experimentally, I said, you know, maybe you want to try this. And so I had a couple of patients that did try it and they did lose weight and their lymphedema got better. Wow. Wonderful. And so I said, let me. Prove this through a study and, and it really, when you go into a study, you shouldn't be planning on certain outcomes happening. You know, I went about this the totally wrong way because I was sure this was going to work. And so I set up a study so that I could show that this, this is feasible. This works. So I needed to have a university backing me to do that, so I said, well, I guess I got to get my doctorate so I could have a university so I could run this study. And luckily I found a program in getting a doctorate in occupational therapy that said, wherever you want to focus your work on, go to that. And of course, I wanted to do it on lymphedema and obesity. So they allowed me to do that. I put together a study. And I actually had 10 of my past patients. who had gone through the program of just the standard massage and compression therapy and exercise and stuff. And now they were on their own trying to manage their their lymphedema, but they all had a BMI of over 30. And so I invited them to be part of a program that was 12 weeks. Once a week we would meet and we would help them adopt a ketogenic diet. And then we'd look at other lifestyle factors as well, like stress and sleep and stuff like that. But the main focus was to adopt a ketogenic diet. Well, interestingly, six of them adopted the diet and four said, no, can't do this. And they were, you know, very apologetic to me. Leslyn, I mean, we ruined your study. We're not doing the diet. Don't worry. I mean, this is, this actually makes a comparison group. So, albeit very small but we had six people who did it and four who didn't. And the results were actually astounding, kind of what I expected, but even more than I expected. That their swelling went down in the group that ate ketogenically, but not in the other group. And, and the other group actually got a little bit more swollen. The, the pain numbers, the their ability to do just daily activities because their limb size was so small. smaller was so much better in the ketogenic group than the other group. So all of the areas were. astoundingly different and better in the ones that ate this way. So from that, I kind of developed this lifestyle program to help my patients continue to do this because it seemed like, wow, this seems like from the small pilots that it seems like it's working. Well, then an interesting thing happened is that my patients who did not need to lose weight said, well, would it be good for me to eat that way? I mean, is I. Tried the diet myself and I didn't need to lose weight, but I enjoyed it and it seemed pretty healthy. So So I had some patients that wanted to use it and didn't need to lose weight this is when I started really revising my View of a ketogenic diet and lymphatic disorders because I always thought it was related to just the

Lorenz: 8:53

Mm

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 8:54

obesity but what we started finding in this group that didn't need to lose weight is Their lymphedema was better managed because they were restricting carbohydrates and eating more fat.

Lorenz: 9:06

mm

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 9:07

And so then I started looking into this more and seeing what was out there and it mostly was animal studies, looking at lymphatics and and high fat diets and stuff like this. And so what they were showing is that eating fat actually stimulates the growth of lymphatic vessels. So now you have someone who maybe had a surgery, for instance, removed lymph nodes or had radiation to, to to kill the cancer. And so it damaged their lymphatic system, but they eat a high fat diet and we can stimulate lymphatic vessel growth. Well, that's

Lorenz: 9:47

mm

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 10:43

And that might be one of the reasons why this is so good for someone who has a lymphatic disorder. That it really is beyond just

Lorenz: 10:52

mm

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 10:53

It is also about having the healthy lymphatic system. And having it function better despite the fact that you have some kind of lymphatic disorder. So, I'm, I was pretty astounded with that and I continue to be astounded and I really enjoy helping people adopt this way of eating and be able to manage their lymphatic disorder better.

Lorenz: 11:14

Seems like such a fulfilling line of work. And, you know, I wanna ask, when you said they got better, how much better did they did they feel when, when they go on from the standard treatment to a ketogenic diet, how much better did they feel?

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 11:32

So, and this is what's interesting because I started saying to people, well, let's look at more than just the scale. Let's just not look at just your weight. And so we started looking at you know, you use bioimpedance to look at body composition. So what is how much fat is there, how much lean and how much fluid and fluid is pretty important when you have a swelling disorder. And then we also were looking at levels of pain, levels of energy. I had a fatigue severity scale that I use and how much were they impacted by their fatigue. And so we looked at all these things. I mean, it was amazing. Okay, just look at pain and I'm going to give you some anecdotal stuff first. But another lymphatic disorder, lipedema. This is fat that gets deposited just on the lower body, and not on the upper body. And not only that, the fat is painful. So we're talking a very painful disorder that can be, out of ten, ten being the worst, seven to ten. constant pain. And so, these women were using a ketogenic diet and that the shortest that I've seen is six days on a ketogenic diet to go from 78 out of 10 down to

Lorenz: 12:50

Wow.

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 12:51

in six days. Normally, it happens 2 to 4 weeks, and this is before they've lost any weight. I mean, it was always we assumed that it was because of the amount of weight that was on the lower body and stressing maybe the hips, ankles and knees that, you know, that was causing the pain. They wouldn't lose any weight yet, but the pain would already be gone. I mean, I just find that astounding and it's such a huge improvement to quality of life.

Lorenz: 13:21

I can imagine like, you know, living with that pain and then all of a sudden, like you said about four, four to six weeks.

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 13:29

Yes. Very, very, very short time. I mean, and you know that in the early part of using a diet, you can lose a lot of water weight. So you might in that first month lose about, you know, five to 10 pounds in that first month, just because of water weight, but without any weight loss. They were having their pain severely diminished or even completely resolved. I mean, I just found that absolutely astounding.

Lorenz: 13:58

hmm. You know, I want to go, I want to go back. Not a lot of people, you know, understand this disease and even the sufferers get conflicting information about it. You know, some, also some doctors that. You know, these separate sufferers may come across with maybe say, there's no cure. I'm not, you know, generalizing everybody, but you know, the general idea is there's no cure for it. Right. So I imagine how daunting this can be for, for the sufferers. If you don't mind, I would like to discuss this topic even, even deeper. Typical symptoms. What does one with lymphedema experience? Well, you know, you, you talked about pain. What is the current, also what's the current treatment you talked about? You had, you know, 10 people do the, the study, but before that, what, what, what was the treatment that they were on?

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 14:48

yes, yes, yes. And, and and there's two conditions that I really do most of my work on, and they, they're, they sound very similar, but they're two really different conditions. And one is lymphedema, L Y M P H. edema or swelling. So that is different from lip edema, L. I. P. Edema. And so lip fat. cut part of lipids and edema swelling. And so they are two different disorders, but they both are lymphatically based. And so lymphedema is two main causes that we see are either you're born with an imperfectly formed lymphatic system. So you have swelling in various regions of your body because the lymphatic system cannot evacuate that fluid. correctly. And so you swell. But the other reason is for cancer treatment, that lymph nodes and vessels are disturbed and damaged. And then we get swelling to that region of the body where you had the the surgery or the cancer. And so that is very different from lipidema, which is a fat disorder, but also a lymphatic disorder. And this one, it is almost exclusively women. And it is, it seems to be genetically and possibly hormonally based because it seems to start around puberty most often, but it also can be triggered at pregnancy and with menopause. And so the symptoms are that you get a disproportionate fat deposition to the lower body from, and it can go from the waist to the ankles. But maybe it's just the hips and the buttocks, or it might go down to the knees, but it tends to be a lower body. But now it's we also see it a lot in the arms. But what remains largely unaffected is that head, neck and trunk. And so it just it looks very disproportionate, very obvious when you can see that person that has that. But now it's also very, very painful. As we talked about, they get easy bruising. So bruises just show up in the areas affected by the lipidema for unknown reasons. And so we have this set of symptoms that is really there's no blood test or there's no imaging that can say this is lipidema. So it makes it even harder to diagnose. Also you have the healthcare community that maybe is not aware of it. And so they say, well, that you're just obese and your obesity happens in your lower body. But the amazing thing that, that that we've discovered since it was first. labeled in the 1940s is that typical weight loss measure, loss measures do not work. So, this person can diet to starvation and can exercise six hours a day, and, and they'll, they'll lose fat on their head, neck, and trunk, but the affected areas will not change at all, at all. And so, and they're just told they're not doing it enough. They're not you know, they're, they're non compliant, they're lazy, they're not doing it enough. And so basically we're punishing that person when they actually have a condition they have a disorder that is poorly recognized. We do have now some physicians that are very knowledgeable about it. And but.

Lorenz: 18:28

Not enough.

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 18:29

of times the, the woman doesn't even know about it. So she doesn't even know that she needs to seek someone out. I mean, this, this is what's happened with the internet in the last, you know, 15, 20 years has really helped so many people because Women are going on the internet and going, why do I have fat legs? And then lipedema is, is popping up. And so they are self diagnosing there. And that's mostly how, you know, we, we get people together and, and they, they, they self educate about this condition. It's not coming from the medical community because it really is. It's only in the lymphatic community of those healthcare professionals that are in that community that really know

Lorenz: 19:15

Mm. That's one good thing that came out of the internet, right? is you're equipping yourself with information, right? Hopefully we are, you know, still like, you validate the information, obviously look for sources that are really credible, right? So, so, you know, take everything with a grain of salt and just you know, if I, I always say, you know, find somebody who reversed the disease and you'll be on the right path. Healthcare system, you talked about, you know, the pushback and how important do you believe the support of a healthcare provider is from, for patients like who are pursuing the lifestyle and nutritional changes, particularly in conditions like lymphedema and obesity that partnership. How important is that?

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 20:03

it is super important. And so, I mean, now I'm part of two organizations, Lipoedema Project and Lipoedema Simplified. And we're trying to give women that support to make lifestyle and dietary and other. changes so that they can take back control of their body and help themselves. But a lot of times we need the support of a health care provider in order to partner with them so that their medications need to be managed. They usually don't have only lipidema or lymphedema. They typically have other conditions as well. And as you know, having been the space for a while, You know, if you have, for instance, type two diabetes, you can't just go on a ketogenic diet without having someone manage your medications carefully so that you're not over medicated for your hypertension or your diabetes or something like that. So, so we need to have that partnership with the health care community. And so, you know, there's two spaces that I'm trying to break into with this information about a ketogenic diet. And one is to the lymphology community themselves. And let me tell you, they've been very resistant. They, they are concerned that a system that really is responsible for mobilizing dietary fat, they feel like if that system is impaired, then we cannot be eating a bunch of fat and burdening a system that's impaired. And you know, that is a, it's a valid discussion to have. But I think that science has shown that that system also relies on fat to heal itself to, to work properly. And we know that there are essential fats, and so you cannot starve yourself of those fats and expect to be healthy. So the, the lymphology community has been resistant, but now they've done, there's, in just last five years, there's probably about six clinical trials and case studies about using ketogenic diet for. lymphatic disorders. And so it's getting more accepted. And then the other community I've gone into is the the low carb community and the obesity medicine conferences, because those are the physicians or the healthcare providers that might see someone walk into their clinic with lipidema or lymphedema, not even knowing that they have that diagnosis. They're just there to get help with their obesity. perhaps. And so if that those physicians are knowledgeable about it, and I will tell you, the low carb community has been very accepting of that. This These are bona fide conditions, and these are something that we need to help people with. So now that now the person has the best of both worlds, they have someone who believes them and will accurately diagnose them with their lymphatic disorder. And they also have support for adopting a ketogenic diet and any other needs that they have for their health.

Lorenz: 23:14

Mmm. So I want to be able to help our listeners here if someone is suffering from lymphedema or lipidema for that matter. If they, you know, come, if they, you know, come forward and, you know, speak to their doctor about lipidema and the ketogenic diet or lymphedema. What, what are, if the doctor is dismissive of lifestyle change and how does that usually play out? You know, you've, you've seen it with, with your clients, with your patients how, how does that meeting usually play out and what, what do they need to do to convince or maybe swayed their doctor or physician on, you know, the path, the right path to take in that scenario.

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 24:05

Yeah. So some physicians are swayed by medical journal articles, but they don't have a lot of time to read those things, those papers. But sometimes, even if that they see that this, the title of the paper and that it has been published in a peer reviewed journal and the title says, you know, a ketogenic diet beneficial for, you know, X, then then they might, even without reading the whole paper, they might be more supportive. I will tell you just in my little study, my little pilot study that I did, one of my participants who was. wildly successful with reducing her pain, reducing the fat mass on her lower body. You know, a volume of the legs going down, all this kind of stuff, all increased energy, decreased brain fog, all these things happen. And she, went back to her doctor and her doctor, who was a vegetarian was concerned. You know, you're eating all that meat and all that fat. You know, I want to check to make sure this is okay. Did a bunch of blood work. Did the coronary artery calcium test did the the Doppler for the carotid artery, did all this stuff. Everything come back. Perfect. She's like 75 years old and everything is perfect. All of her numbers are perfect. And he goes, Oh, I guess you could continue doing that. And maybe a vegan lifestyle is not the best thing for me. I mean, and that's you know, that is. Sometimes they have to see the proof of what happens to someone after they use the diet. Now, you know that we have that sub group that is a lean mass hyper responder, that they go on a ketogenic diet and they get their LDL numbers, which are supposedly the bad cholesterol, that goes up really high. And so, A doctor may look at that and say, you know, we've got everything else is stellar. Everything is beautiful. Your pain is down. You're enjoying life. Your weight is down. Everything is good, but your LDL is up. Some doctors will look at that and say, that's a problem. Go off of that diet. But I think a lot of doctors will look at that and say, well, everything else is good. So maybe you should go ahead and continue, but let's keep an eye on these cholesterol numbers and see, you know, if we need to do anything for that, that would be, I would hope for that reaction, but there's still plenty of physicians that are very much afraid of dietary fat, very much afraid of cholesterol numbers going up. And so I don't know how much we can do for that doctor. What I have suggested is some of my patients who have faced that situation. I say, well, you know, keep that as your primary care. But why don't we go find a like someone from the Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners who uses a ketogenic diet, who uses nutrition to help you? Why don't we use that as a specialist that you can have also? And maybe that's someone that you will be seeing on video visits. It's, you know, so, you know, not totally, you know, abandoning your current physician, but let's get someone else on your team that is supportive of what you've chosen to do. Sometimes you can't change the physician. Sometimes they're not going to change.

Lorenz: 27:36

sometimes they're not going to change, and it just takes a while for that information to get relayed. You know, they say it takes about 10 years. I don't know how true that is, before, you know, the traditional conventional, conventional treatment changes. But at least we know that there is a cure because a lot of people out there who maybe have lymphedema or lipidema, they go online, you know, searching for a cure and they see, like, I,

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 28:06

Yeah. And I, I, I have to, I have to clarify that this is actually not a cure, that these are conditions that you probably cannot cure, but we can manage them way better than we have in the past by using diet.

Lorenz: 28:22

And

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 28:23

it's definitely you know, the standard western diet has. Caused obesity that compounds a lymphatic disorder. But you know, this person, this person has been born with a imperfect system or they've developed a condition of lipedema or lymphedema secondary to something else. Things are, there are some irreversible damage that's happened and, and, but if we can stimulate some new vessel growth, if we can facilitate the better transport of fluids and fats, then we certainly can manage it better and with less discomfort and better quality of life. But at this point, even with this spectacular diet, we can't say that we

Lorenz: 29:08

yeah. No, the reason why I said that is because you said the pain was seven to 10 down to zero. I mean, that's, that's, that's pretty amazing. And then, you know, I was, I was reading up on some of your studies that you've done that high carbohydrate intake leads to inflammatory response of the lymphatic system. Right. you know, just reducing carbohydrate intake. You, you're, you're, you're not having any response, right? You, meaning when you take away carbohydrates. You're basically stop, stopping the bleeding and with, with the help of, you know, the fat, right? You said fat is therapeutic for the lymphatic system and also what's the mechanism behind that? I know you've talked about that a little bit, but can you discuss that mechanism and how, how that works and how does, you know, fat or maybe is it ketones? I don't know, but can you explain that a little bit deeper?

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 30:05

Yeah. So, and, and on lymph lymphedema, there's no animal model of, of lipidema. So they use people in studies, but lymphedema, we can give mice lymphedema. And so quite often they're doing these, Dietary interventions on animals instead of humans that currently there is a couple of studies going on right now, one in Belgium, where they're using live people who have lymphedema, but lymphedema, there's no animal model for an animal that gets this pathological fat deposits to their lower body. So, so they have been using humans. And so a lot of the information we're getting on how this happens, what happens in humans is from. Those women who have participated in those trials and and also I've extrapolated a lot from other studies, just studies about ketone and pain. you know, or ketones and cognition and clarity of thought. So those in Alzheimer's patients or maybe in patients who have Parkinson's or various neurological conditions. And so we've extrapolated that the symptoms that we see in our patients with lymphedema and lipidema. And okay, it's it's similar to what is experienced in these other disorders, and they're they're getting this response. And they're specifically, it it seems that the carbohydrate. is like it's inflammatory lymphatic vessels, and it also causes them to be more leaky. And so when you're fewer, instead of transporting the fluid, if you're leaking the fluid into the tissues, it's not being evacuated. You can see how that would exacerbate or at least not get better your problem with the swelling. And then with the fat, it's on the my studies, it's showing that The lymphatic system actually in, in response to eating dietary fat, we see increased contraction of the vessels and they're pumping the transporting the fluid and the fat along faster in response to eating that fat. There was also an interesting study that they wanted to see the impact of metabolic syndrome on the lymphatic system. And so, of course, they use mice and they gave them a high fructose diet. And so then they looked at what happened to the lymphatic system with that high fructose diet and the fact that they develop metabolic syndrome, their lymphatic vessels were swollen so much so inflamed and swollen that they had 50 percent reduced transport ability. So they couldn't move fluid out of an area because they were so swollen the vessels themselves. And so this played out in a study that they did with women who had suffered breast cancer. They had lymph nodes removed. They got lymphedema in their arm on the side of their breast cancer. And then they wanted to put them into a weight loss study and see how the weight loss affected their this is the amount of swelling they had in their arm and every other time they had tried this, you know, just kind of losing a low fat, low calorie diet, they lost weight and their arm got smaller. Well, this particular study, they used a meal replacement and that meal replacement, and I won't name the brand, but that meal replacement was high fructose, I guess, in order to make the shake taste really good, they needed to really sweeten it up. So it was high fructose. And so the women who use this all lost weight. But their arms and get smaller. And the the researchers were totally dumbfounded. They did not know why that happened. And I, my theory is that that high fructose was so inflammatory to those vessels that even though they lost weight, those vessels were swollen and they couldn't evacuate the fluid out of the swollen arm. And so therefore the swelling didn't go down. So we're looking at this It's this combination of reducing the carbohydrate, reducing the inflammation and the leakiness of the vessels at the same time of having the beneficial effects of fat in our diet for all the beneficial effects, but also the beneficial effects that it has on lymphatic system and it's functioning. And it just is this perfect way of eating for someone who has a lymphatic disorder.

Lorenz: 34:31

this women probably swear by the ketogenic diet by now, right? When,

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 34:36

Well, you know, it pretty much the, the, the women with lipidema we have a Facebook group with over 14, 000 women who are using it's a keto lifestyle for lipidema and they're like, okay, I know this works. Now I need to tweak it so that it works for me. I happen to be, for instance, as an example, if, if I'm allergic to shrimp. Okay, well, I'm not going to have shrimp be one of my animal sourced foods. I need to or I don't find pleasure in eating pork or or it's for my religion. I don't want to eat, you know, certain foods. So now we need to make it individualized with that person within that framework of reducing carbs and increasing fat intake. How do we make it work for you socially, culturally just your taste buds? So this, if this is something you're going to do the rest of your life,

Lorenz: 35:31

which they have to, right? They have to do it the rest of their life.

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 35:35

exactly, exactly. So we need to make it work for, for the individual if it's going to be something that they're going to adopt the rest of their life.

Lorenz: 35:44

Is that something that's part of the program that you offer?

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 35:49

Yeah, so, so what we do with Lipoedema Simplified is that we offer various classes and support groups and stuff like that to even like the Facebook group, just, you know, people posting questions and how do I do this? And what do you guys think? And, you know, people are, are offering suggestions. We do have a twice a year, we also have. A virtual three day event where we have expert speakers and we also have people who have the conditions, lymphedema, lipedema themselves and talk about their journey. And we talk about all aspects of the condition and all suggested ways of, of improving your care and treatment. But the one coming up in April specifically going to be focusing on nutrition and. We're pretty sold on ketogenic nutrition. So, so we have several expert speakers and patients that are all going to be talking about the benefits of using a ketogenic diet for lipidema and lymphedema.

Lorenz: 36:52

I would talk about that. When, when, when is that happening?

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 36:56

So what's happening? I'm going to make sure I get the dates right here. It is happening April 12 to 14 just in, in, you know, about two months. It's going to be virtual. We'll have a link so people can go and learn more and, and register. So it's a Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and we have speakers in the, the lymphological. space, but also in the keto space. So some people that your listeners, your viewers may know about is, for instance, like dr Georgia eat, who is a psychiatrist who uses ketogenic diet to help with mental health. And there is, I mean, when you talk about particularly people who have lymphatic disorders, there's a lot of body dysmorphia. Your body is not shaped like everybody else. You're dealing with fat bias, stuff like that. So So we feel like Georgia is going to really help with that. We also have Dr Tro Collegian who's going to be speaking. And a lot of, you know, him as, as part of the obesity medicine space. And then in the live, the logical world dr Gabrielle Farber is in Germany and she has had a clinic for boy, 15, 20 years. And she's already been treating lymphatic disorders. With diet, she actually has a degree also in nutrition and she realized that this way of eating was superior. And so, unbeknownst to me, I thought I was all alone talking about using keto for lymphatic disorders when I first was getting my doctorate in 20 13 to 2015 and but she'd been doing this way before and already been doing it. And so, we love having her speak and talk about what's happened with her clinic and the pushback that she gets and in, in Germany talking about, you know, having people use this way of eating as you know, I mean, it's, it's this plant-based. low fat, low calorie is it's taken over the world. And so it's there. There is a lot of pushback when we say there might be a better way,

Lorenz: 39:12

Yeah. You know, these people haven't known a life without pain and now they do, right. Living without pain and, and people who go plant based usually it's. They try it. They will try it. But you know, it would take a year or two. And then they figure out that it's doing something to their body. And, and hopefully they find a way out and find a way back to really feeling good. Right. And that's, that's the best thing. Living without pain. Right. That's the best thing. You know, it's such a. It sounds like it's such a great event, right, to join. If you guys are interested, listeners, it will be linked down in the description box below so you guys can check that out. Awesome. Well, I want to ask you. If what stands out when, when I ask you, if there's any story that you can talk about today that has really caught your attention, like a patient that got better, any story that comes to mind.

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 40:20

Oh, yeah. And there's many. So, and the person who had her tremendous pain resolved in six pain six days was You know, something that did just, I mean, when she presented at one of our past conferences, I mean, there wasn't a dry eye out there because that was just so astounding. But I think about another one of my patients who did this, decided to do this way of eating. She was the one who had a vegan physician. And she came to me and she felt like she was ready for a wheelchair. Her pain was so severe and her legs were large. It was keeping her from in enjoyment of life. She was not able to walk on the beach. She was not able to garden. She loved doing gardening activities. She had some young grandchildren. She felt like she could not spend time with them and do activities with them. And so she said, well, let's, let's give it a try. So, so she and her husband, who was very, very supportive. And probably would benefit from eating that way himself. They both came in and started using the way of that way of eating. And I did lots of measurements of success. As I was telling you before, we did body composition. We of course did weight, but we also measured her legs. to see what the, what the size change. We looked at pain. We looked at brain fog and cognition depression, all these other measures. And Georgia was just spectacular. Just looking at her because I have a before after picture of her and I've quite often with her permission used her before after in my presentations. And I will tell you that when people see her after, and this was after about maybe a year and a half of using the diet, they would gasp because she just besides that you can see that she was smaller, more slim. But she just looked, there was a glow about her, a happiness. She was back to gardening, back to doing activities with her grandchildren. She told me that she knew that her brain fog was gone because she went to the airport and she had to go by herself. And she had to it was a transfer, so she had to go to walk to another gate before she would have to have a wheelchair to get to the other gate. She walked to the other gate, but not only that. She found the other gate on her own, which she said, this was not something that she could have done before because of the amount of brain fog. And so, she just, that enjoyment of her life and that she convinced her, her vegan vegetarian physician, this was all good. And he was rethinking what he was doing. I have this wonderful after picture of her that she kind of dyed her. her hair blue. And I mean, you could just see that she was she was in this place where she just felt so happy, joyful. It changed her life. And and she said, you know, she told her doctor, I hope you'll support me on this because I'm not changing. I'm going to do this way the rest of my life. And so, I hope you'll you'll be with me as I continue to do that. And he has, he has stayed with her. So that's good.

Lorenz: 43:35

There's no wonder why you're so passionate about what you're doing. It's just helping, you know, women you know, not just reduce the pain, right, but they're gaining their life back as, as, as

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 43:47

Yes. Yes.

Lorenz: 43:48

you talk about so eloquently, so. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing that story with us today. And also your story and sharing all the insights about this topic that is really, you know, like I said, misunderstood a lot of people are suffering out there. And if you're listening right now Here's some examples. You said there's a lot of examples that really people who've turned their life around, right. Pain to zero people who have living with pain you know, upwards of seven to 10, right. And, and now living with. You with no pain. So it's really amazing to hear about these stories and just really giving a lot of people hope. And so I want to thank you for coming on and I want to give you your flowers. And you're doing such an amazing job with, with, with, with your program with, you know, helping a lot of these women turn their life around. So I want to thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming on and sharing your story today.

Dr. Leslyn Keith: 44:45

Thank you so much for your interest in this and it's been wonderful being here chatting with you.

Lorenz: 44:50

Thank you. All right. Have a great day. Bye bye.

44:53

Thank you for joining me for another episode of the ketones and coffee podcast with Dr. Leslie and Keith, as we discuss the role of the ketogenic diet in managing lymphedema and obesity and the role of carbohydrates and fat in lymphatic disorders, I have provided links to the doctor less than Keith's work and her socials, PC the show. No captions below. If you're learning from or enjoying the podcast, please subscribe to wherever you listen to your podcasts. We see a great zero cost way to support the podcast. And you can also leave us up to five star reviews on both Spotify and apple. If you have questions, please reach out to me on Instagram or a new website at keto. Coach lawrence.com.