Talk:Ketogenic diet (generic)

There is no reason why research into the use of the ketogenic diet for other conditions cannot be fully discussed at Ketogenic diet. Bearing in mind WP:UNDUE, such a discussion will not be that extensive since it is only at the research stage, and much of it isn't even in humans. I have sources for some of these research aspects and plan to expand what is currently at Ketogenic diet. There is no need for a separate article for other therapeutic uses of the ketogenic diet, since none of them have reached clinical use. Colin°Talk 08:08, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ketogenic diet now covers all the aspects of research into other uses of the ketogenic diet than epilepsy. It is sourced to two high quality review papers, rather than citing primary research papers or newspapers. Colin°Talk 13:28, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry I had not seen the merge proposal before. Although I understand the intention I believe this is the wrong thing to do. This is sort of a tomayto/tomahto issue but I believe it is important to try to stick close to how the terminology is normally used. To be clear here
 * The term Ketogenic diet has been around for a long time and has been used to refer to a particular super-high-fat diet used for treating neurological disorders.
 * The term ketogenic by itself is used to refer to other diets, like Atkins, but many of these other diet plans differ in significant ways from the classical Ketogenic diet.
 * One can argue that ketosis is the common thread in all of these diets which explains their effectiveness but this is a matter of intense medical debate. As such it should not be treated as a given.
 * It may be that making Ketogenic and Ketogenic diet (generic) refer to a disambig page instead of having Ketogenic diet (generic) be a full-fledged article is the right thing to do. But I believe that their should continue to be a distinct article on the classical Ketogenic diet and that this should be distinguished from the broader topic of diets that are ketogenic.
 * --Mcorazao (talk) 15:23, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with what you are saying but have an alternative solution. Yes, the noun "ketogenic diet" is used by the medical community to refer to a strict ultra-low-carb diet that currently has only one clinically approved use (epilepsy treatment) but a number of research studies are ongoing for other uses. These are at a very early stage (case studies, animal experiments, small uncontrolled series) and are fully documented in the ketogenic diet article (at the end). It is wrong to think that the ketogenic diet article is solely about epilepsy but since that's is 99.9% of its current usage, it is the dominant subject.
 * I agree, the adjective "ketogenic diet" applies to all diets that induce some degree of ketosis, and encompasses Atkins for example. I have no problem with someone creating category:ketogenic diet which includes all such diets. However, there is no need for an article to discuss the general topic; the current low-carbohydrate diet does this quite adequately.
 * This article, Ketogenic diet (generic), breaks WP's naming conventions and the current content is entirely redundant. It's sourcing is inferior to the text in ketogenic diet (see WP:MEDRS for why). Once one removes the merged medical research text, you are left with a dictionary definition. Fine for Wiktionary but not useful here. There really isn't any content that should be in this article that shouldn't be in either ketogenic diet or low-carbohydrate diet. Therefore, this article can be deleted (merged).
 * As for the link in low-carbohydrate diet, I'd support either removing the link, linking to Wikitionary, or linking to a category. Perhaps, a category solves all the problems: something to link to and a means of listing all "ketogenic diets". Colin°Talk 16:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Perhaps a category would be difficult. It would need to be a sub-category of the Category:Low-carb diets but, for example, the Atkins diet is only ketogenic in its induction phase. Really, I think discussing lifestyle low-carb diets that vary in the degree of ketosis induced (if any) is best done by the low-carbohydrate diet article. Colin°Talk 16:49, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe Ketogenic (the adjective) could be the place for a short article describing any regime designed to induce ketosis. Don't forget that fasting is ketogenic (and quite an effective temporary weight loss technique :-). It could list the various methods of inducing ketosis, distinguish ketogenic and non-ketogenic low-carb diets (including any research on the difference), etc. It can also discuss how one tests for ketosis (e.g. Ketostiks) and the consequences of overdoing it.  How does that sound? Colin°Talk 17:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well any of those sounds generally ok but I would suggest an organization like the following.
 * A generic article on low-carbohydrate diets. Keeping the Low-carbohydrate diet name seems appropriate. Maybe getting into a little more detail on ketogenic versus non-ketogenic low-carb diets is appropriate.
 * An article on the classical Ketogenic diet (regardless of its usage). I think it makes sense to keep the name Ketogenic diet makes sense since it is well known.
 * An article discussing ketosis both from a scientific perspective and discussing how diet induces and affects this. The Ketosis article already largely does thing but perhaps there are a few details that should be added.
 * A disambiguation article on diets that are ketogenic. This would be an extremely short page with one or two sentences mentioning ketosis as a metabolic state and that there are diets that induce ketosis. Then a short list of links to Low-carbohydrate diet, Ketogenic diet, Ketosis, Ketogenisis. And nothing more. I don't care what that is called: Ketogenic diet (generic), Ketogenic, etc.
 * I think that's all that should be necessary. The only reason to have the disambig is simply to deal with the confusion regarding ketogenic diets. It provides a place to link to that gives a quick clarification so the reader can decide what they need more information on.
 * Anyway, I'll defer to you.
 * --Mcorazao (talk) 02:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. I'll create something at ketogenic, but it won't be strictly a disambiguation page. See Disambiguation for the rules governing those pages, which are fairly strict. As for the other articles, I'm not really planning to work on anything other than ketogenic diet as I don't have sources to hand for the low-carb lifestyle stuff. Colin°Talk 07:41, 30 July 2008 (UTC)