Many of those who subscribe to this diet, have joined social media groupings where they receive meal plans and engage in challenges to lose weight based on meal plans given by the administrators.

Mr Prince Baidoo, head of the Dietherapy Unit at the Tema General Hospital, issued the warning on Wednesday in an interview with the Ghana News Agency.   Mr Baidoo explained that by overly lowering the carbohydrate and increasing fat in food, a lot of pressure is put on the liver, a situation which could lead to a serious liver related diseases in the long term.

He added that it could also lead to increase in cholesterol level, hypertension, heartache and stroke. “Why force yourself to lose weight and contract all these sicknesses in future”, he questioned. He advised people who want to watch their weight to use conventional acceptable ways to lose weight instead of following a social media craze.

The dietitian clarified that dietitians in consultation with other medical teams often put inpatients and children with intermittent seizures on the ketogenic diet for a while after a careful assessment.  Mr Baidoo questioned why healthy people would want to adopt a therapy diet as a lifestyle just because patients who were put on it lost weight as a side effect of their treatment.