Mental Health
Brides-to-Be Use Feeding Tubes to Fit into Wedding Gowns
The controversial trend in dieting, the K-E Diet, is becoming increasingly popular, namely with brides-to-be, as the diet promises a 10-20 pound rapid weight loss in 10 days through the use of a feeding tube.
The K-E diet requires women to use a feeding tube inserted through the nose and down into the esophagus for up to 10 days. The dieters are fed a constant slow drip of protein and fat, mixed with water, which has zero carbohydrates and totals 800 calories a day.
The treatment costs $1500, and can result in the shedding of up to 20 pounds through a process called ketosis, which leaves muscle intact.
Dr. Oliver Di Pietro, who administers the diet in Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., told ABC News the diet involves no hospitalization, simply a bag filled with the food solution and a tube in the nose.
"It is a hunger-free, effective way of dieting," Di Pietro told ABC. "Within a few hours and your hunger and appetite go away completely, so patients are actually not hungry at all for the whole 10 days. That's what is so amazing about this diet."
According to The Daily Mail, dieters can remove the tube for one hour a day and can drink water, tea or coffee throughout the day.
Di Pietro told ABC there are no adverse side effects.
"The main side effects are bad breath; there is some constipation because there is no fiber in the food," Di Pietro said, adding those with kidney issues should not try the K-E Diet.
The K-E Diet has been popular for years in Italy and Spain, and in the UK for the past year.
Despite its recent launch in the United States, the K-E Diet has gained much popularity in the U.S., namely with women struggling to lose weight for their weddings.
"I don't have all of the time on the planet just to focus an hour and a half a day to exercise so I came to the doctor, I saw the diet, and I said, 'You know what? Why not? Let me try it," 41-year-old bride-to-be Jessica Schnaider told ABC News. "It was emotionally difficult, the 10 days of not eating."
However, Schnaider only participated in the K-E Diet for eight days and lost 10 pounds.
Invented by Gianfranco Cappello of the La Sapienza Hospital at the University of Rome, the diet works in cycles to control hunger. Cappello has successfully treated over 40,000 patients who have lost pounds within days, according to the Daily Mail.
However, some critics believe that losing so many pounds in a short period of time can be a dangerous route, as the body cannot adapt as quickly as the weight is dropped.
"If you lose the weight too quickly your mind is not going to be able to catch up with a newer, skinnier you," psychoanalyst Bethany Marshall of Beverly Hills, Calif. told ABC News.
Dr. Aronne also told the New York Times: "Any extreme low-calorie diet is associated with side effects, kidney stones, dehydration, headaches."
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