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This is so incredibly strange - I just connected with someone who had disappeared for a while, and they were dealing with mental health challenges. They were facing challenges, and they were trying their damndest to connect with people working on Metabolic Psychiatry. I did a cursory read on whatever most recent credible sources existed, and found that… it wasn’t a fad. I hope I’m largely correct but: The underlying work was talking about something else entirely - in essence a link between cardiovascular / metabolic health, mental health and diet. Switching to a low carb diet has helped reduce those metabolic factors, which allowed for a reduced dose of medication in conditions such as ADD, Bipolar disorder, depression. Having never heard of this before, it smacked 100% of being some fad. But it looks like (diet + health) = better (cardio / energy). Yes - the conversation did eventually go to Psych is bad, and doctors only want to medicate, and mitochondria misfiring. |
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Speaking from experience, while a good diet is not a “cure” for my issues, a bad diet is a great way to self destruct. The things that help or trigger people are going to differ vastly from person to person. For me: 1. Getting enough magnesium seems to consistently provide subtle positive effects. Makes me more resilient physically and mentally. 2. Too much omega-6 (which includes pork and chicken fat) will eventually result in depression and eczema. While I can tolerate some intermittently with no issues, more than that has repeatedly proven to be asking for trouble. Basically fixing nutritional deficits or toxicities allows for removing a large swath of problems, either in part of wholesale. This generally allows for reducing medications, fewer side effects, or even (only sometimes) allowing removal of meds. While definitely not a fad (as I would define it), it’s important to keep in mind that the people making posts about it tend to be very excited about finally experiencing positive effects that border on a miracle after being in a pretty bad way for a long time. As such they can end up understandably making sweeping statements that lack the laundry list of disclaimers that are inherent to the topic, or even outright mistaking the cause. I forget the name of the “fallacy”, but a common thing to see is “x cured my y, so now I’m certain everyone must need x for their y”. While this excitement eventually becomes more reasonable, you’ll need to remember to add disclaimers yourself when reading. |
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There are definitely outliers for every type of diet out there. For me, the closer I stick to meat and eggs, the better I feel. I think it comes down to me just texting negatively to so many things. Legumes, wheat and cranberries in particular. Now that everything seems to have soy in it it's hard. I have a hard time sticking to restrictions and every time I pay for it. I've also had really bad side effects to most Medicaid I'd ever been on. My metabolism is pretty much destroyed now. I wish I could tell myself 25-30 years ago to ignore the general advice and just eat more eggs and ruminant meat. This is my own anecdotal reality. It's also a large part of why I push back against veganism. I can totally see a world where near is outlawed or so highly restricted it's prohibitively costly. The irony of seeing highly processed foods pressed so hard for maximized profits the past couple years. It's gone up more than animal products in price relatively speaking. |
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I started trying fasting in the 1980's, and later keto. I've been watching people try it for a very long time. Almost everyone who tries keto successfully, says something akin to "I never realized how poorly my brain was working!" Definitely life changing for me (in combination with S-Acetyl Glutathione)
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I have been on keto for some time and can't second that. The difference was that I had very steady energy levels through the day, but my brain worked the same as normal I'd say. I also became noticeably weaker when it came to lifting weights
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> I also became noticeably weaker when it came to lifting weights you may need up to 6 month for full keto adaptation according to some internet accounts. |
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"Very steady energy levels" is already a brain change - as opposed to the usual slumber and dismotivation after regular eating. You didn't expect something like "Limitless"-lite, did you? |
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In my case it wasn't impactful enough to justify such a lifestyle change. It limited where and what I could eat, and I struggled a lot with keeping up my daily caloric intake (fast metabolism), which was OK while cutting but not sustainable afterwards. That is, unless I ate very unhealthy things, which made it net negative.
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Have you, or anyone you know, been able to stay on it successfully long term? I know a couple who have tried it, had good results, but later stopped, but none who have stayed on it long term.
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That is the general experience, I think. I did pretty strict keto for 2.5 years. Been off it for about a year now, while many of the habits stick (I eat next to zero added sugar, and generally low carb, less processed food, etc.). I got rid of a lot of weight and some skin conditions. It was generally very positive. It was weird to have such stable blood sugar that you never feel hungry, even when not eating at all. There were some adverse results too, like zero muscle strength. I also digest carbs worse now it seems like. There might well be ways to avoid those issues with a more carefully managed keto diet. I'm not sure if I will jump back on a strict keto regimen, it requires quite a bit of effort to plan meals, especially when other people in the household eat a regular diet. I have come to see keto as an intervention, very effective at fixing acute issues. Once you have done that reset, I think a lot of those wins can be maintained through generally healthy habits (which you now understand a lot better). |
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The only kind of diets I know of that people stay on long-term are less strict diets. The stricter the diet, the lower long-term adherence is, which seems logical. Keto is very strict, very measurable. My pediatrician brother goes off and on keto very successfully. Whenever they need doctors for a test of the keto diet, he goes back on it. Despite being low body fat, he tends to lose more body fat than others on the diet, because he's a home chef and marathoner and very much in control of his diet. I tend to not make enough effort to balance my diet on keto, which causes issues that take me off of it, for example, I don't respond well to having too much cheese. |
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Yeah, I have tried several diets, and keto does give a boost in brain, let's say clarity, even when not losing weight (because I often overeat meat and butter and cream and cheese and such allowed foods) than none of the others do.
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Interestingly I was just watching talk from Nick Lane, presented at the Royal Institution about mitochondria and respiration. What is amazing to me is that respiration isn’t just burning glucose to make ATP, it also makes many other essential building blocks needed for health cells. https://youtu.be/vBiIDwBOqQA |
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Same for me, fasting or low carb, whatever keeps you in ketosis makes my memory sharper, my brain function better, and is for me at least, non optional for living a productive life.
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This is somewhat anecdotal as well, but what I find interesting reading this is that a possible treatment for epilepsy that's tried is the keto diet. Going through this with a family member now, the doctors have recommended only if the first line medicine doesn't work because it's such a pain in the ass to maintain if you're not fully into the world of meal prep (doc's words, not mine).
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Low carb/"Keto" started as a fad, with low science behind it, as in other fad diet. In fact, as "Atkins" and such, it has grown like that for decades. But people started noticing good mental and health results, that are not just due to the losing weight part, and as studies started piling in, we see good results for such aspects (conditions such as ADD, Bipolar disorder, depression and so on, but also degenerative stuff like Alzheimers). |
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It's a night and day difference for me when I eat very low carb. My brain feels like it went back 15-20 years in sharpness. |
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Nutritional ketosis entered the public eye with Atkins. The research on the use of ketosis for cognitive health is still young.
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This is only anecdotal but I had heard about the benefits of fasting for brain performance, so I once tried fasting during a chess tournament. I fasted during the first six days of the tournament. My results were disappointing so I gave up and broke the fast on the seventh day.
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I fast once or a twice a year for 3-6 days, and I practice "one meal a day" most of the year. My first fast was difficult, I did not supplement with electrolytes, slept too much and basically spent the duration watching series and feeling awful. It is much better to go outside, work and try to follow your regular habits. Electrolytes supplements are a must, and also some paracetamol during the first few days to reduce the inconvenience of your brain switching from glucose to ketones. Fasting is easier the more you do it, partly because of calibrated expectations and less fear but I also think that the body simply adapts. The only difficult day is the first one, for me. The mental clarity thing is not a boost, you won't gain IQ points or intellectual stamina, more like slightly enhanced mood and more stable/regulated mental performance. |
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Paracetamol is an anticholinergic isn’t it? It’s bad for your brain and its usage is associated with dementia.
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Paracetamol is the default painkiller for most people, I would suspect that regular use means some kind of inflammation. I would not find surprising that chronic headache could be correlated with risk of dementia. |
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The study however found no such association between regular ibuprofen use and dementia. Not sure what compels people to go all "I have no idea what the supposed results of the study are but my amateur intuition about it tells me it's wrong".
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That paper is extremely weak. Look at the confidence intervals surrounding the hazard ratios. There is almost no effect for paracetamol and the difference between paracetamol and ibuprofen is negligible. If this is the evidence, I’m not concerned.
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I tried this in the past, I absolutely could not last past 36 hours, all I could think about was food. The easier way for me was to do the Atkins fat fast, which basically 800 calories of 90% fat for a few days to kick myself into ketosis. I’m not sure why I needed with a capital “N” to have food when I tried a “hard” fast. It could be a mental block, as a child I was never allowed to skip a meal, even if I only ate a little bit. Weight didn’t become an issue until post 30 :)
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I found a diet which is more carb-rich got my body used to wanting immediate energy from carbs. Capping carbs with a high (low PUFA) fat diet is a much easier ramp (for me) to keto, fasting, intermittent or omad.
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The reason why that happened is quite simple. You are currently accustomed to being in a fed state, and it will take a while to adapt to a fasted state. Additionally, during the initial period, you may experience issues such as sugar withdrawal, which can lower your performance. Your body’s cells will need to switch from predominantly using glucose to using ketones and fatty acids. This process can take weeks to months. The body is able to use both glucose and ketones; this is called being metabolically flexible. This flexibility can be achieved through intermittent fasting. So give it time. |
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Supposedly chess layers burn excessive calories playing. From one popular culture article[0] ...The six-game championship in 2004 left Rustam Kasimdzhanov 17 pounds lighter. And in 2018, one company tracking the heart rate of grandmaster Mikhail Antipov concluded that he had burned 560 calories in just two hours. Sitting still. Playing chess. (An average-sized person would need two hours on a treadmill to break 500.)
Last week, ESPN looked more closely into the toll the stationary sport takes on the body. ESPN spoke with Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford University researcher who studies primates. Sapolsky explained that some chess players respond to the game like any elite athlete, burning upwards of 6,000 calories a day during tournaments, due to tripled breathing rates, elevated blood pressure, and muscle contractions. That means during tournaments they can lose two pounds each day.
I have done several fasts, and I am quite dubious of the supposed mental improvements. My brain has spent 99%+ of its existence no more than 12 hours away from a steady supply of glucose. I personally feel physically and mentally sluggish. While probably erring much on the side of caution, I avoid driving during a 5+ day fast because I feel my reaction speed is diminished. Furthermore, the brain is the single most energetically expensive organ in the body. If there were a shortcut metabolic pathway, it seems like it would have been exploited long ago. [0] https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a29144951/chess-players-c... |
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Ketosis isn't a shortcut, it's a critical part of the human organism. The brain has to run on something, and we store very little glycogen. It wasn't uncommon in the ancestral environment for food to be entirely unavailable, or for the only calories to be in the form of meat, which itself has little glycogen. So there's a secondary pathway to account for those conditions. A hand-waving argument could be made that in circumstances where there are no calories, it is the most important time for the brain to function well. Glucose is the cheapest, metabolically, that doesn't automatically mean that it's the best. The reaction someone has to a fast, or to a diet which induces ketosis, is fairly personal. I don't think there are broad sweeping conclusions we can draw here. My n=1 is that after two days of a fast, I feel pretty sharp. Electrolytes are indeed essential to this; in this context salt is far and away the most important, for whatever reason. I would expect the YMMV factor to dominate though. |
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I've played chess in the U.S. Open, NY Open, World Open in the 1980's (finished in the money in 2 out of 3). Really leaves you starving after playing for hours.
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If you’ve been regularly eating meals multiple times per day, it will take your body much longer to start functioning well during a fast. That said, I think the mental performance benefits of fasting have been excessively hyped. I wouldn’t expect a chess player who has been fasting for multiple days to have better mental clarity. The body goes into energy preservation mode when food becomes scarce for days. That includes reduced energy expenditure for the brain. |
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Just yesterday I mentioned here that I train for (olympic) triathlons [1], and in the context of that and this thread I need to eat much more because I lose significant weight AND, I feel much more nervous if I fast, and I am not a nervous person. If I am not training I have the capacity to easily fast, not issue at all with fasting, not because I follow any intermittent fasting diet, just it is the way it is. Only sample=1 but I never observed any special enhanced cognition doing that while I observe an enhanced cognition function with very basic things like sleeping well. One more thing, I also find an improvement in cognition more with running than with swimming or biking. There are many studies about that but I give my personal experience not trying to give any conclusion for everyone. YMMV. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40533944 |
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great going and good on you for your health BUT endurance athletics represents only an important but tiny fraction of the lives of adults. General conversation around health, fitness and tuning is easily derailed by outliers and insufficient context!! office workers with weak backs and wrists end up arguing with 20+ hour a week gym people over some aspect of diet, and then they talk past each other.. no problems with the comment but perspective and context are everything when talking health. Most people in good health can practice some version of fasting with some common sense. Zero people with good health can train for "olympic triathalons" starting next week.. so a peek (peak?) at the life of a triathlete is interesting and perhaps commendable, but really needs calling out as an outlier in a general discussion. |
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I was clear in my comment and in a reference to a previous comment that people are different. I never recommended that you should follow my way of life but I shared some aspects of my healthy life because I considered that I am not doing any exceptional thing, healthy human-wisely. > Zero people with good health can train for "olympic triathalons" starting next week.. Completely wrong. There are many paths to train for an olympic triathlon that doesn't start running, biking, and swimming and having the correct mindset, endurance, and physical state. It is like saying that a normal kid cannot learn certain things at elementary school. I am not a professional but an amateur. |
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There is a ton of research on this… high intensity exercise requires glycogen and cannot be done at the same level without a high carbohydrate intake. It is possible to walk almost indefinitely in ketosis, but it won’t really work for any kind of athletic competition.
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Years ago I saw some YouTube videos featuring sports folks - from marathon runners, to someone row/paddling across the ocean - all of them being long term (basically permanent) on keto. And also recently some UK doctors (some of them with diabetes - I mix the types so not sure which one) decided to prove a point by going low carb/keto, while doing long runs daily (about half marathon a day), to be sure they've definitely used up all the potentially stored glycogen. |
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It's pretty fascinating stuff, and totally doable. I stand corrected on the "any athletic event"- what I said doesn't apply to ultra long duration lower intensity events. Endurance will be higher but peak power outputs lower. For endurance focused events like the ones you described, I could see it being an advantage- everyone will run out of glycogen, but those already keto-adapted won't need to suddenly start trying to adapt during the event.
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Temporarily, and then it is dramatically reduced. Jesus people, please stop with the unequivocal statements about equivocal/nuanced/complex things. |
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> Temporarily, and then it is dramatically reduced No change of diet will "dramatically reduce" metabolism. This is entirely unsubstantiated |
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Not true, unlike many other mammals humans can survive a long time without food largely because the liver regulates metabolism in response to calorie intake. The thyroid hormone T3 is the main regulator aka “gas pedal” of cellular metabolism, and conversion of inactive T4 into T3 is done mostly by the liver. Conversion is halted when fasting or severely restricting calories… much to the frustration of dieters. This is why mainstream advice is to not lose weight too fast.
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Indeed, and there are a few other mammals for which there are mechanisms to reduce ATP generation, reduce VO2, etc., and some which do it much better than humans do. Emperor Penguins, for example.
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Did you read the study?
The study is about prolonged fasting, up to 58 hours. They observed that metabolism
Increased during fasting. > During human fasting, metabolic markers, including butyrates, carnitines, and branched-chain amino acids, are upregulated for energy substitution through gluconeogenesis and use of stored lipids. |
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You are misunderstanding what that means… it is an up regulation of catabolism- breaking down other molecules and tissues for survival during fasting. Overall metabolic rate is drastically reduced during prolonged fasting, which is good, it preserves nutrients for survival. 58 hours is not a long fast in terms of total adaptability to fasting- humans can fast much longer, sometimes for months, and the biggest down regulation of metabolism usually happens later than this. |
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Catabolism is an integral component of metabolism. Both anabolic (growth) and catabolic (breakdown) processes constitute the entirety of metabolic activities. The study that I linked examines a fasting period of 58 hours. Fasting for 58 hours is considered a form of prolonged fasting. Prolonged fasting refers to an extended period without consuming food, typically lasting more than 24 hours. |
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Yes, every chemical reaction in a living system is part of metabolism, but in common speech when we talk about increasing metabolism we are specifically talking about increasing the metabolic rate- e.g. calories burned to generate ATP per an amount of biomass. What is happening in that paper is the opposite of a "metabolic increase" in that context. You are trying to correct people by citing a paper that supports what they were saying, and not what you are saying. I am an academic PI whose lab studies metabolism... however I use common speech when talking online so people know what I mean, I would only use more specific terminology when talking with other metabolism researchers. In many cases the common terms and academic jargon are strictly at odds, but even a researcher wouldn't say "increases metabolism" when talking about fasting adaptations, they would talk about increased metabolic flux through specific pathways and/or changes in metabolite concentrations. The 58 hours is another example of the same- it isn't long enough to observe many of the adaptations to fasting, especially the pronounced fall in T3 and resulting decrease in metabolic rate. The fact that 58 hours would be called "prolonged" in a journal article is not relevant to the point I was making. |
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Whether "burning calories" is used for nutrition or for "burning fat," both terms are common in everyday speech. The rate of "burning" increases during fasting. I have linked one study published in Nature. Let's go over some excerpts that will answer your questions. * Metabolism increases during fasting. > Thus diverse, pronounced metabolite increases result from greatly activated catabolism and anabolism stimulated by fasting. * The hormone t3 produced by the thyroid is used to control metabolism. In this study they instead looked at markers for actual metabolism. > We performed non-targeted, accurate semiquantitative metabolomic analysis of human whole blood, plasma, and red blood cells during 34–58 hr fasting of four volunteers. During this period, 44 of ~130 metabolites increased 1.5~60-fold. Consistently fourteen were previously reported. However, we identified another 30 elevated metabolites, implicating hitherto unrecognized metabolic mechanisms induced by fasting. * The study also mentioned prolonged fasting. Which is earlier stated longer then 24 hours. > Quantification of blood metabolites from 4 volunteers during prolonged fasting. (a) Experimental procedures employed to study metabolomic changes during human fasting for 58 hr. |
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A metabolomics study like that does not measure metabolic rates, you are fundamentally misunderstanding the article- it has no relevance to this discussion or my statements. They are measuring metabolite concentrations which tell you essentially nothing about metabolic rate. For that people use direct or indirect
calorimetry.
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Metabolomics is the study of metabolism using the latest technology to look directly into cells. Metabolic rate is often measured through oxygen consumption and CO₂ production (indirect calorimetry), but this primarily focuses on aerobic processes and does not provide a complete picture of metabolism. Within metabolism, there are both aerobic and anaerobic energy pathways.
Measuring metabolic rate through oxygen consumption and CO₂ production does not account for anaerobic processes such as glycolysis (glucose breakdown), beta-oxidation of fatty acids, and the creatine phosphate system. Researchers sometimes try to mitigate this limitation by measuring lactate levels in the blood, which can provide some insight into anaerobic metabolism, particularly in muscles. However, blood lactate levels primarily reflect anaerobic glycolysis and do not fully account for other anaerobic processes involving fatty acids and creatine phosphate. There are formulas to estimate these processes, but they are still approximations. Metabolomics, on the other hand, looks directly into the cells and is not limited to only aerobic processes or anaerobic lactate production. Instead, it can identify and quantify a wide range of metabolites, which are the intermediates and end products of metabolic reactions. Thus, metabolic rate measurements provide an estimate of energy expenditure but do not directly assess the complex metabolic processes occurring within cells, whereas metabolomics offers a more direct and detailed view of cellular metabolism. As such, the study published in Nature is within the field of metabolism and uses the latest technology to study metabolism directly. Therefor it constitutes our latest understanding of metabolism during fasting. |
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The Dunning Kruger effect is strong! Thanks for trying to explain it to them, I sincerely appreciated your valiant efforts :)
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And did you play better? Fasting is different than ketonic diet though. With fasting you also lose constantly salts/minerals/vitamins. Especially salt deficit will make on tired. |
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What do you think about drinking water with electrolytes or those electrolyte “salt”rich tablets that have magnesium, sodium, calcium, etc? (While fasting of course)
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It's important while fasting. Your body needs electrolytes or you will have all sorts of health issues. Potassium is the most important one, followed by sodium. Every cell in your body has a sodium/potassium pump, which works to keep potassium inside your cells and sodium outside (creating a battery essentially). About 30% of all energy in your body is used just to maintain this pump. Anyhow, potassium is the big one... many people don't get enough from their diet even while not fasting. And unfortunately supplements give very minuscule amounts of potassium (<=2% of RDI), supposedly because rapid absorption of large amounts of it can cause heart arrhythmias/attacks. |
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Did you do a full "water fast" during those six days or an intermittent approach and did you supplement electrolytes or take any other supplements? Genuinely interested, hope this doesn't read as the often common "you should have done this" reaction I commonly see when discussing certain diets or fasting. |
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I recall someone, maybe Tim Ferriss, saying it typically takes him 6-8 weeks before he can do an equivalent workout on keto, and for high level endurance athletes much longer, like 12-18 months of adaptation before they start seeing clear benefits over their previous non-keto baseline. So there’s an adaptation period, which is why it’s hard to do studies on this, because people starting keto cold turkey is likely to result in worse performance, mentally and physically, in the short term. |
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High level endurance athletes are unlikely to be going full keto given the need for intra-race nutrition.
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I don't think it works that way. Probably should have eased in for months, doing fasting a day or couple of days per week, before tackling a 7 day fast head on, and at a demanding situation nonetheless!
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Did you take your electrolytes? If you don’t supplement on Magnesium/Potassium/Sodium you’ll have to deal with severely unpleasant effects on any water fast that spans beyond 2-3 days.
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Huge mistake. Water fasting is a breeze when done correctly and dangerous when not. The biggest risks are not supplementing the fundamental electrolytes because your body runs out of them in about 2-3 days and the second is not taking precautions to prevent refeeding syndrome. If you’d like to attempt another 3+ day fasting please read up on the fundamentals this time to ensure a pleasant experience. I love my headspace during an extended fasting, nothing quite like it. Two good sources to read up on this is the r/fasting subreddit’s wiki, (note the electrolyte and refeeding syndrome sections) and if you’d like something with more depth any/all of Dr. Jason Fung’s fasting books. https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/fasting_in_a_nutshell |
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I beg to differ sir.. (full disclosure.. I am no doctor, nor expert in the subject, I've just read a lot of material, and I have survived 8 years of water fasting sans electrolytes) I've been water fasting for 7 days every 3 months for the past 8 years. For maximum health benefit, it is my humble OPINIOIN that we should not consume electrolytes, not until the 10th day of water fasting that is. When I waterfast, I want my entire GI-track to be on vacation (park everything). Furthermore, I don't want my biological cells being "distracted" by any substance in the blood stream. I want them consuming fat(no conversion energy) and doing severe spring cleaning. I want tissue repair in the entire GI-track, I want tissue repair in the liver, kidneys, heart... everywhere. I want damaged white blood cells to be flushed out (due to calorie restriction)<to be replaced with new cells once I start eating> renewed, I want I want senescent cells<zombie cells) to be flushed out. I strongly believe that introducing salts into the body will prevent optimal health benefits otherwise achieved. I would however, consider the introduction of a substance to break-down plaque in the veins while I fast, something that would break down fibrin, which is the glue holding plaque together, but I have not found a good natural fibrin-disolving substance.
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Same. I have been low carb for years, but at one point, I decoded to go full actual ketogenic. I never remember being more productive and focused than in true ketosis. Note that getting there is something you need to test for. I did blood drop tests at home with a device to measure ketone levels. Also recommend some materials from Tim Ferris on this topic including the Dom D’Agostino part of Tools of Titans and I think some podcasts on the topic. |
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Does anyone else get the sense that health research is flawed because the scientific process struggles to be holistic e.g. changing multiple variables at the same time is not commonplace or even really realistic? Sometimes I read these studies and it feels a bit like someone reverse engineering a car without knowing what a car is supposed to do. Like - if you don't use oil, the engine is preserved quite well, unless you rotate the wheels, then it gets ruined, but only if the clutch is engaged. But then we do a study, we hold the clutch position constant, say it's disengaged, and then rotate the wheels at different speeds, and find that it doesn't make a difference, and publish that, and then it makes its' way into general understanding that you don't need to use engine oil. People seem to want to seperate the effects of diet, exercise, social interaction, etc, but I don't think this is possible in a complex system like a human being. They all need to be balanced. |
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Yes. "Science has just discovered processed foods and refined sugars are bad for you!" Wisdom and insight is something more than scientific credulity. Potential underlies state. State does not ultimately underlie potential. |
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One hears stories of people with dementia having a day or two of mental clarity just before they die. Could this explain that? Perhaps their bodily processes are failing so much that normal glucose production is impaired, leading to ketones being produced instead, and temporary clarity before the failures lead to death...
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Alzheimer's is related to insulin resistance? The article presents this as consensus opinion but is it really?
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I think it's fair at this point to say there is a clear relationship. The earliest article I have in my (relatively cursory) research file on the metabolic relationship for AD is from 1994: Fukuyama, Hidenao, Masafumi Ogawa, Hiroshi Yamauchi, Shinya Yamaguchi, Jun Kimura, Yoshiaru Yonekura, and Junji Konishi. “Altered Cerebral Energy Metabolism in Alzheimer’s Disease: A PET Study.” Journal of Nuclear Medicine 35, no. 1 (January 1, 1994): 1–6. Here are some more recent reviews discussing the connection (recent reviews are good not just because they take into account the latest developments, but they also give you better references to go through for further research). Note, these reviews are from completely different/unrelated research teams from different countries: Yoon, Ji Hye, JooHyun Hwang, Sung Un Son, Junhyuk Choi, Seung-Won You, Hyunwoo Park, Seung-Yun Cha, and Sungho Maeng. “How Can Insulin Resistance Cause Alzheimer’s Disease?” International Journal of Molecular Sciences 24, no. 4 (February 9, 2023): 3506. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24043506. Rhea, Elizabeth M., Manon Leclerc, Hussein N. Yassine, Ana W. Capuano, Han Tong, Vladislav A. Petyuk, Shannon L. Macauley, et al. “State of the Science on Brain Insulin Resistance and Cognitive Decline Due to Alzheimer’s Disease.” Aging and Disease, August 17, 2023, 0. https://doi.org/10.14336/AD.2023.0814. Kshirsagar, Viplav, Chetan Thingore, and Archana Juvekar. “Insulin Resistance: A Connecting Link between Alzheimer’s Disease and Metabolic Disorder.” Metabolic Brain Disease 36, no. 1 (January 2021): 67–83. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11011-020-00622-2. |
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Does that mean you do good by your brain when you do a hard burn exercise once in a while ? After all those substances are a byproduct of burning fat instead of glucose by your liver. Or do i need a fat rich feast ?
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Your body starts producing ketons when you stop eating. Typically it starts 12 to 24 hrs. It'll start faster if you don't eat carbs / sugar and instead use protein because the body start producing ketons when it runs out of glycogen stores. Sugar and carbs add glucose to your blood. The less of it you have, the faster the body will start producing ketons. Exercise also helps because it uses glucose faster. Of course assuming you'll not just start eating carbs / sugar after exercise. That includes all drinks that include sugar. But really you'll get most benefit of exercise just from a walk after meal. Why after meal? Because that's when glucose spikes and a walk uses glucose faster. |
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Don’t you produce ketones any time you can’t get enough energy from carbohydrates?
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Your body usually stores 1-2 days worth of “glucose” energy in the form of glycogen in muscle tissue and the liver
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It is not intuitive, but a diet high in fat will make you less fat than a diet of sugar and carbs. The calories in nuts are not all absorbed.
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Thus they are very filling if you eat a reasonable amount and not a can of them. I eat them at meal time and not as snacks, it’s easy to forget how many times you’ve grabbed a pinch of them if you “snack” on them throughout the day. Nuts are very nutritive as well, unlike pretty much any other snack heavy in sugar/fat
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Good fats. Stay away from human manufactured fats like transfats like it’s your religion.
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True. But contrary to fats (or proteins or fibers), sugar is also addictive, doesn’t satiate your body, and ultimately generates hypoglycemia some hours later for you to eat more sugar. So yes, the dose makes the poison but sugar is the only one poison your body accepts to absorb in immense quantities. |
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Has any research been done on what happens when the body is in a state of high glucose and ketones at the same time?
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Not that I’m aware of but a number of professional cycling teams have been using them for a few years so there may be something in the works.
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You have a source for that? It’s my understanding that ketoacidosis is pretty hard to achieve unless you’re diabetic or some other serious medical condition. It is not the same as ketosis.
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Ketoacidosis would be easy to achieve by just taking too many exogenous ketones too quickly. Ketones are acidic, the body doesn't like to have unbalanced blood pH. It is rare without ketone supplementation, because unless you're fasting, eating a ketogenic diet, or are diabetic, the body doesn't usually have a high concentration of circulating endogenous ketones. Diabetics can become so insulin resistant that their cells no longer uptake glucose, so they must fall back to burning ketones for energy, even while blood sugar is very elevated and food intake is normal. This is why DKA is so dangerous and (relatively) common. Nothing about ketoacidosis is limited to diabetics - its just not common in non-diabetics, because how would you get such high concentrations of ketones? ... |
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I frankly don’t care what you believe, but I do care about the ability of the general population to understand reasoning and logic. To that end, please understand that what you’re arguing is not a counter-example like you seem to think it is. It’s an argumentum ad populum - you’re saying this must be true because elite cycling teams are doing it. This is not a proof. It’s not even evidence, you’re not even citing something specific enough to call it that. Again, believe what you want just make sure you understand that you’re not making a sound argument. |
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You should probably look into the supplements I’m referring to before launching into a diatribe.
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You seem to think that would affect my statement. Pay attention to what I’m actually saying. I have no opinion on the supplement. It’s still invalid reasoning regardless of whether the supplement is effective.
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Also, have you heard of Lance Armstrong? Do you think elite cycling teams worry more about health or performance? It's a sliding scale from no harm to performance benefits to death. Clearly they are intelligent and educated and those teams expend effort to stay to the left of death... |
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> Does that mean you do good by your brain when you do a hard burn exercise once in a while ? There's a whole bunch of stuff happening in your body post strenuous exercise so it'd be hard to isolate ketones specifically from that. |
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My notes as an exo-keto enjoyer: At least until exo-ketones are mainstream you should consider that you are competing for people well aware of the product. That said, you should really seek to differentiate yourself from other products. You have a single, unsourced line about how your product is superior. Ok, cool. I’m not going to do your marketing teams job and look up studies to prove it out. Also, powder > shots > full drinks. Shipping adds up and flexibility in consumption is probably the easiest way to get people to integrate your product into their daily routine. For example, we love ketone salts combined with collagen and caffeine mix in the morning. I’ll probably order some of your product though. Good luck! |
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The first thing I noticed when I read the story was that the ketones were administered and not the result of a diet. Good luck with your investment, the business sounds like a good idea. They need to do a ton of marketing though. I also suspect that as others enter the market those involved will end up competing heavily on price. |
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Reads like beginning of a new fad just like keto diet. My idea is that sugar in quantities we ingest nowadays damages all and makes more problems. It is not that ketones are some magic thing. Only that sugar is rocket fuel for the brain so it should not be used without care. |
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>new fad just like keto diet The keto diet has been around over 100 years and it was developed in a clinical setting for children with epilepsy to reproduce the benefits of fasting - which has been known for thousands of years to prevent seizures - while providing a long term solution and not deprive children of calories. It’s not exactly a fad, it’s just that there are a lot more studies being conducted on the benefits - like fasting studies which lead the discovery of autophagy and the Nobel prize in 2016. The idea sugar is rocket fuel for the brain, is a little misguided. Certain sugars spike insulin triggering anabolic response getting glucose to the cells quickly, but that doesn’t make glucose more efficient for the brain. Ketones are smaller than glucose molecules and more efficient at crossing the blood brain barrier. Rocket fuel for the brain is being in a deep state of ketosis and consuming medium chain fatty acids (e.g. coconut oil) or beta hydroxybutyrate (i.e. exogenous ketones). |
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> The keto diet has been around over 100 years and it was developed in a clinical setting for children with epilepsy Yes, exactly. It was developed and studied in the context of epilepsy treatment. The current wave of keto influencers are pushing it as something else, though. I have tried keto and noticed some interesting effects, but the impact on certain parameters of my lipid bloodwork was undeniably bad no matter what I tried. The keto community works overtime to downplay the possible negative effects of the diet, but actual cardio and lipid researchers have very different opinions. |
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And you are probably basing that on the fact that the two standard lipid markers for HDL and LDL went up, right? And you probably ignored any that the ratio probably improved between "good" and "bad" lipids? I guess you didn't just eat lots of bad fats but also improved the composition of fats you ate? Lipid research is sponsored by pharma a lot. They need to push their statins. Anecdotal datum of one: I happen to have high cholesterol no matter what I do. You have to fast in order to do the lipid blood tests. Sometimes I forgot to fast and have even eaten eggs. My lipid profile was better in those cases. I also got muscle cramps from taking statins. The heart is a muscle and those cramps can kill you. Instantly. |
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> And you probably ignored any that the ratio probably improved between "good" and "bad" lipids? "For predicting your risk of heart disease, many healthcare professionals now believe that determining your non-HDL cholesterol level may be more useful than calculating your cholesterol ratio"[1]. Additionally, "extremely high HDL-C levels are associated with an increased risk of age-related macular degeneration (also genetically), infectious disease, and all-cause mortality."[2] [1]https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-ch... [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10119031/ > Lipid research is sponsored by pharma a lot. They need to push their statins. A comment in a keto/low carb discussion believing in a statin conspiracy? shocked. > Anecdotal datum of one Entirely irrelevant |
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[1] It's funny. My Browser shows I visited that link before ;) A comment in a keto/low carb discussion believing in a statin conspiracy? shocked.
I'm not on Keto. I'm not on an actual low carb diet. I'm just not afraid of eating lots of good fats. I'm not afraid of eggs or cream any longer. I don't believe in a "statin conspiracy". There's no conspiracy needed. We've seen over and over again with lots of things that companies favor funding research that shows something that sells their product or they outright lie (sorry "do marketing"). Leaded gasoline? Milk is good for you, make your children drink more? Butter is bad? The statins causing muscle cramps are a fact and not a conspiracy. I got statins in ever increasing dosages because they didn't help. When the cramps started, my doctor took me off statins. When I then did try Keto all of my blood markers that were either bad or borderline went into completely normal territory. Except for lipids that did the usual "hover around some really high and absolutely bad for you territory". Again, a datum of one. But when all the things done to me with evidence from statistically relevant studies and research doesn't help and actually makes things worse but the statistically not significant thing works to improve all of the markers of statistically proven blood testing, then this anecdotal internet person here will stick with what works. YMMV as always. Entirely irrelevant
My anecdotal datum of one was marked as such. On purpose. No need for this entirely irrelevant comment of yours. The person I replied to did not and drew a wide ranging societally generalizing argument from his datum of one. |
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I don’t think it’s so insidious. People see real benefit and results from highly restricting carbs. Something is happening, it’s not just a fad. Sure, it’s fine to debate the pros and cons but to outright disparage it because there a community of excited people who have had life changing experiences talking about it positively seems overly reactionary.
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> Something is happening, it’s not just a fad these are not mutually exclusive. It is a fad AND something is happening. That something comes down to two major things about low carb/carnivore diets: 1. You are removing processed foods. Going from a Standard American Diet to basically anything that involves more whole foods is going to be healthier for you and make you feel better. This doesn't mean that the new diet is optimal but it can be a step in the right direction. 2. Restricting your diet down to a few types of food is going to remove a lot of allergens. If you only eat meat for example, you are removing literally every single non-meat allergen in your diet - most people have some sort of food sensitivity (lactose intolerance being a common one) so you are going to feel better when you remove those allergens. However, this does not mean that accidental elimination diets are the long term solution. You should slowly add back foods and see what you react to so you can do something less extreme but still feel good doing it. So yes a lot of people feel better on these diets but that does not indicate they are healthy long term or superior to other options. |
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It also doesn’t indicate they are worse for you. After 3 months I went from almost prediabetic and bad (not awful, just “take care”levels)of LDL/HDL(ratio) to Ideal ranges and dropped 28lbs. I do believe that keto lifestyle is as valid as the Mediterranean and DASH diets, both of which I tried and failed to stick with, as they were more effort. I’ve been in the ideal range for over a year now (just got retested). So I say go with what works as long as you work with your doctor and get your biomarkers checked. The only exercise I really do is some mild resistance training and 8-10k steps a day, but I was doing that before my weight loss.
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> After 3 months I... Don't care. A single anecdote for 3 months is not even kind of relevant when determining if a diet is healthy long term |
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Yeah, those excited folks go often a bit mental over the board and praise it like second coming of Jesus, that's what most folks have problems with. Rational discussion about pros and cons is rare.
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Discovering health tends to do that to people. It doesn’t matter if it’s discovering keto, carnivore, vegetarian, vegan, or exercise. When people commit to improving their health, and begin to experience improvements, for better or worse it is like the second coming of Jesus. Particularly diabetics that make lifestyle changes, lose significant amounts of weight and get off insulin. Nearly everyone who experiences that feels that if they can do it anyone can do it, and they tend to share their experiences enthusiastically and rightfully so. |
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When you’ve been unhealthy and struggling to maintain a healthy body for years in a society that indexes way way way to heavily on carbs because they’re cheap and equally isn’t honest about the toxicity of glucose, you can kinda see why people get so enthusiastic about it. Sure it can be annoying but there are problems on both sides and people that say sugar is fine eat it at will are starting to come off as maliciously delusional to me of late.
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Keto influencers? My doctor recommended it for weight loss and it’s probably saved my life. You’re being pretty negative because of your once experience on something that does help people and does have results.
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I think you are throwing the baby out with the bath water, sure there are probably influencers pedaling keto product, just like corn, eggs, coffee, sugar, cereal, and meat have entire lobbying industries pedaling bad science and bad food stuffs. But when you reply “yes, exactly” to the fact that the keto diet was developed in a clinical setting over 100 years ago to mimic the benefits of fasting and offer a n=1 anecdote about your lipid panel, that’s no better than anyone you are accusing of downplaying possible negative effects. |
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> it was developed in a clinical setting for children with epilepsy to reproduce the benefits of fasting - which has been known for thousands of years to prevent seizures - while providing a long term solution and not deprive children of calories. I don't know why people still use this as any sort of argument for keto in the general population. Most people are not children with epilepsy and even for children, the keto/low carb diets has many downsides most notably growth retardation, kidney stones and bone mineral loss. |
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When people wrongly claim keto is a new “fad diet” you don’t know why people would point out that it’s been around for over 100 years highlighting there are ample subjects that had adhered to it their entire lives from childhood? Are there many diets that have lifelong adherents over their lifetimes over the last 100 years from the general population that have been studied? |
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> When people wrongly claim keto is a new “fad diet” you don’t know why people would point out that it’s been around for over 100 years Again, these are not mutually exclusive. Even if the idea of a keto diet has been around for 100 years, that doesn't mean that right now it is not a fad (a style, activity, or interest that is very popular for a short period of time). It was never popular before, it is now and it almost certainly won't be in 10 years or so. >Are there many diets that have lifelong adherents over their lifetimes over the last 100 years from the general population that have been studied? who are these people who have done keto their whole lives and have been studied? Can you share the case studies? |
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Seems to be a logic problem… >Keto is a fad
>no it’s a diet developed in clinical setting been around more than 100 years
>I don’t know why people bring up that its not relevant
>yes, it directly contradicts what OP said
>it’s no mutually exclusive, sure it’s been around 100 years, but it’s a far and won’t be around in 10 >Are there diets that have life long adherents over the last 100 years that have been studied?
>show your studies I think someone like you would be better off googling. You should easily find studies supporting as many as 70% of epilepsy patients who are treated with keto as children can get off of keto after 5 years without any seizures and no longer need any medication. You should also be able to find studies of long term keto diets, ‘long term’ as defined within the studies themselves, covering various types of individuals and get yourself a healthy perspective on the overwhelmingly positive outcomes and to a fat lesser extent the negative outcomes. Good luck! |
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Neither of these papers are keto diets specifically. It looks like these patients just had way more personal one on one time with their doctors, dedicated group sessions, and carb information. Without actual carb counts there’s no way to know if this is actually keto. Importantly, neither paper specified the high fat part of the keto diet, which makes me think neither paper actually supports keto. Btw I’m not personally an anti-keto guy I just dislike mindless paper citations. |
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You linked two papers about reducing carbohydrate intake, which is not a ketogenic diet. A ketogenic diet involves severe carbohydrate restriction and even major protein restriction. The research you shared isn’t applicable. This is a huge problem in online keto discourse: People share a lot of “research” that isn’t applicable, such as these low-carb papers or other research about treating epilepsy with keto diets. You can’t just look for studies about lower carb with positive conclusions and assume that this implies the keto diet is good. |
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I was with my wife during her gestational diabetes nutrition session. The diet they recommended was for all intents and purposes a ketogenic diet. The only carbs were from natural sugars in fruits and veggies. They just didn’t push the fat and squeeze the carbs as much as you see in keto enthusiast literature. I have a hypothesis though: the keto community does this as a “failsafe” way to instruct curious people how to experience ketosis for the first time. People practicing keto long term (once they’ve experienced the acute benefits and/or initial weight loss) are almost always landing on their own personal watermark which very likely looks like taking in 60+g of carbs a day in a state of “nutritional” ketosis where there are only slightly elevated levels of keytones (~0.4-1.0 mmol/l) in the blood compared to the level of “therapeutic” ketosis used to treat epilepsy (3.0-5.0 mmol/l).
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The definition of nutritional ketosis is just a restriction in carbohydrate intake to accelerate the production of ketones by the body: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6472268/ There is no specific ketone cutoff level specified, and of course the impact of X g of carbohydrate will vary per individual, during the day and between days. The paper I cited are the end stage validation that a treatment works: using it on patient in their normal everyday life (instead of being in clinic/laboratory) - note that they see the doctor 3 times 10 minutes per year. Of course no one knows how much carbohydrate they take but the guidelines (as presented in the paper) are clearly steering them to nutritional ketosis. As or clinical studies there are many of them done in the past decades, for a ten years ago summary for example: https://web.archive.org/web/20150702005325/http://www.omega3... Dr Westman (the main author, Past-President and Master Fellow of the Obesity Medicine Association and Fellow of The Obesity Society, he also has a youtube channel) uses 20g/day carbohydrate guideline and does not recommand the use of a ketone meter for his patients. |
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I don’t need 20 peer reviewed papers to call out something being a fad - when I get loads of replies calling out it is not a fad on a small comment and YouTubers advertising it on almost all videos.
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> My idea is that sugar in quantities we ingest nowadays damages all and makes more problems. What about little kids with epilepsy? They haven't had years of sugar to get damaged. Maybe they're susceptible for early onset damage? > It is not that ketones are some magic thing. Only that sugar is rocket fuel for the brain so it should not be used without care. The keto diet for epilepsy (psychiatry/cancer mostly copy it as far as I know) needs high ketone levels (at least 2). Even doing carnivore (0 carbs) with medium fat/protein won't help, you won't achieve the blood numbers & won't get results. You NEED to get ~80-90% of calories from fat to achieve consistent blood levels (ketones 2-4+, glucose 4) for epilepsy version. Think of it as a drug dosage. Some people might need lower dosage, but the standard is at the dosage I wrote (blood test GKI 1-2). |
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> Reads like beginning of a new fad just like keto diet. It won't be, ketone supplements are too expensive for that. > My idea is that sugar in quantities we ingest nowadays damages all and makes more problems This is nonsense. Sugar is an easily accessed fuel that your body can readily use for a variety of activities. |
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Well, Alcohol is an even more easily accessible fuel that your body can readily use for a variety of activities... but its negatives are well understood...
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Just because something is less pleasant doesn't automatically mean it's good. On the surface, it would be weird for ketones to improve brain activity - after all "keto flu" is a thing, and it is definitely is not a state of high performance. And if ketones were that healthy then diabetics would the the healthiest people of all. Instead, they are poison, and this is well documented.
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> On the surface, it would be weird for ketones to improve brain activity - after all "keto flu" is a thing, and it is definitely is not a state of high performance. Keto flu is from a low level of ketones, not a high level. Once enough ketones become available there is no more keto flu. From there most people feel at least normal, and many feel a bit better than normal because the cycles of both energy and satiety are smoothed out by the change in fuel sources. > And if ketones were that healthy then diabetics would the the healthiest people of all. Diabetics have health complications precisely because they cannot moderate their blood glucose, with or without ketones. Ketones do not regulate blood glucose, insulin does. Unlike glucose, excess ketones are harmlessly urinated out, they do not need insulin to process them. Glucose in the blood is toxic [1] if it isn't metabolised because of lack of insulin, and even most diabetics consume enough carbohydrates for this to be a risk. There is a clear relationship between availability of insulin and safe levels of glucose consumption, in fact injecting insulin is usually the first intervention if blood glucose is at dangerously high levels. Search for insulin in that paper. Ketones don't enter into this picture at all as either a toxin or the solution to toxicity. Precisely the point is that ketones can substitute for most of your glucose needs without risking toxicity like glucose does. If all of that isn't enough, diabetics often do better following a ketogenic diet [2], not worse. When you can't naturally produce enough insulin to process the glucose you consume for daily energy, producing ketones instead is a safe workaround which your body performs naturally. What part of that is evidence for ketones themselves being the problem? [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2738809/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31336509/ |
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Furthermore there is some indication that people experiencing type 2 diabetes are suffering from essentially a worn out pancreas. In other words their insulin resistance is a result of constantly eating more sugars/carbs than the organ can keep up with. Switching to a keto diet instead of supplementing insulin gives the organ a break where it can actually start to heal and return to a more normal insulin production routine, ultimately meaning that these people can eat a donut occasionally without requiring the insulin supplement like they otherwise would with a traditional treatment plan where their body hasn’t been given a break from the onslaught of glucose. This can be life changing for a type 2 diabetic, because their lifestyle returns to normal outside of paying attention to their diet.
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Insulin resistance is a quality of the cells in your body which cease responding to insulin at their receptors. So higher levels of insulin fail to reduce blood sugar levels. This is the hallmark of T2D. You are confusing this with beta cell function, which also becomes impaired in many T2D people, where the islet cells become damaged, insulin production is subsequently impaired as well, this is a later stage effect in T2D progression. T2D likely manifests from prolonged energy surplus leading to oxidative damage to cells and accumulation of excess fat stores, particularly visceral fat stores in the organs - the cell damage and overfull visceral and sometimes subcutaneous fat stores both lead to hormonal and epigenetic changes and directly to insulin resistance. That's still oversimplified, but it's a useful model. |
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> diabetics often do better following a ketogenic diet [2] Your citation is a single case study over a short period of time. It does not support your claim of “often”. This is deceptive citation and undermines your arguments. |
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Fair enough, thanks for the criticism. Here a few more studies: https://nutritionandmetabolism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10... > The LCKD improved glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes such that diabetes medications were discontinued or reduced in most participants. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22673594/ > The LCD and LCKD had beneficial effects on all the parameters examined. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6024764/ > LCD can improve blood glucose more than LFD in Chinese patients with T2DM. It can also regulate blood lipid, reduce BMI, and decrease insulin dose in patients with T2DM. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34338787/ > The VLCK diet appears to control glycemia and decrease body weight for up to 6 months in people with obesity and diabetes. Beneficial changes in serum triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, along with reductions in antidiabetic medications, continued in the VLCK group until 12 months. However, the quality of currently available evidence is not sufficient to recommend VLCK diets. A major limitation of the VLCK diet is patients' lack of adherence to carbohydrate restriction. So sure, there are issues with adherence and the volume & quality of data here. That doesn't invalidate the trends seen across every study that looks into this. It's more than one study and, within each study, it indeed seems to benefit most participants. |
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Keto flu happens when you transition because of loosing too much water that was retained by carbs and electrolytes gets flushed with the water. Very easy to fix by taking a electrolyte supplement when starting keto (LMNT etc). > then diabetics would the the healthiest people of all. Instead, they are poison, and this is well documented. It is documented on T1D, where they make no insulin at all! Keto still helps on T1D, you will always need insulin, just less, and have more stable blood glucose (and all the benefits that entails with it). For T2D, it's the best solution for it (see virtahealth.com for a great company that helps on this). |
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It's not nonsense and you're not addressing the main point: overuse. A glass of wine is harmless. A bottle of hard spirit will poison and potentially kill you. Your body can nullify small amounts of alcohol. But if you drink more toxin than what your body can neutralize it poisons you. Sugar and carbs rise glucose level in your blood. When it's small amount your blood will re-distribute it to cells as fuel. But if you eat enough sugar and carbs that your body cannot absorb all the glucose, you become fat and develop diabetes. So yeah, sugar is fuel and tastes good but in modern food products it's used everywhere which makes moderate use very hard to achieve. That's why 99 million of Americans are overweight, 70 million are obese. 29 million have diagnosed diabetes, 10 million estimated undiagnosed diabetes and 115 million pre-diabetes. |
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You're confusing sugar and carbs with excess calories. Excess calories are harmful, sugar and carbs are not.
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High blood glucose levels are literally toxic. This will damage every cell in your body. Your body can buffer sugar intake to an extent in order to maintain homeostasis but over time this tends to cause insulin resistance. A little sugar is fine but larger amounts are poisonous. The exact limit depends on a number of factors such as muscle mass and liver glucagon level.
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It's perhaps more accurate to say sugars and simple carbs are easy to absorb whereas fats and complex carbs are harder to absorb. A single gram fat is the most calorie dense substance by weight that we can consume I think. It's just in practice it's hard to become fat by consuming only excess fat.
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A carbohydrate and protein have the same calorie content, around 4kcal per gram. Fat is 9kcal per gram.
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calories in / calories out is a foolproof way to track weight gain/loss over extended periods of time. So people tend to oversimplify nutrition and diet to this one number. But it is indisputable that your body processes carbs, protein, and fat in very different ways. If you only eat donuts and bacon and candy consistently, in normal
caloric levels, then you will likely develop type 2 diabetes (or more precisely insulin resistance). Glucose in your blood is toxic. Are you really going to argue that this diet is perfectly safe? |
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> Are you really going to argue that this diet is perfectly safe? I'm not sure that I ever claimed it was? All I'm saying is there's no point in vilifying those food types as they can be part of a perfectly healthy diet. |
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There is (and let’s not bey coy: arguing all calories are equal implies a sugar diet is perfectly healthy). People literally don’t understand how bad excessive sugar intake is because it’s not vilified enough. A mature adult understands that everyone has vices and all things are usually fine in moderation, and that’s how we should approach sugar. I strongly believe in 20 years sugar will be seen similar to tobacco. And that’s okay. You and I can still enjoy an occasional donut.
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Sugar calories are not equal to say, calories in nuts. The sugar calories are indeed worse. One reason for this is the caloric energy in nuts are not fully absorbed like with sugar. So even though nuts are energy dense, they won’t cause obesity like sugar.
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Calories are pretty much meaningless. The kind of food, proportions of carbohydrates, and other components is very critical. Nutrition =/= filling gas in a car.
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> Calories are pretty much meaningless. I think you'll have to expand on what you're trying to say here as taking it at face value is clearly untrue. |
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There are calorie dense foods that are nutrition poor foods, and vice versa. In living things, it's not about energy only, the contents that help keep the body processing and regulating matter by a lot.
The quality of calories matters a lot too.
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The article said: Researchers then administered D-βHb, a form of ketones, a byproduct released by the liver when the body burns fat instead of glucose for energy. They found that the synaptic activity that was previously impacted by acute insulin resistance was rescued, looking further, D-βHb seems to be an exogenous ketone: Exogenous ketones are a class of ketone bodies that are ingested using nutritional supplements or foods. ... Under physiological conditions, ketone concentrations can increase due to starvation, ketogenic diets, or prolonged exercise, leading to ketosis.[2] However, with the introduction of exogenous ketone supplements, it is possible to provide a user with an instant supply of ketones even if the body is not within a state of ketosis before ingestion.[1] However, drinking exogenous ketones will not trigger fat burning like a ketogenic diet. ... When exogenous ketone bodies are ingested, acute and nutritional exogenous ketosis is produced.[4][9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exogenous_ketone so, how do we supplement our diet? |
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And yet the wide-ranging neuroprotective effects of ketones have been quite well documented... Poff, Angela M., Jong M. Rho, and Dominic P. D’Agostino. “Ketone Administration for Seizure Disorders: History and Rationale for Ketone Esters and Metabolic Alternatives.” Frontiers in Neuroscience 13 (2019). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.01041. Bernini, Adriano, Mojgan Masoodi, Daria Solari, John-Paul Miroz, Laurent Carteron, Nicolas Christinat, Paola Morelli, et al. “Modulation of Cerebral Ketone Metabolism Following Traumatic Brain Injury in Humans.” Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, October 24, 2018, 0271678X18808947. https://doi.org/10.1177/0271678X18808947. McDonald, Tanya, Mackenzie Cervenka, Tanya J. W. McDonald, and Mackenzie C. Cervenka. “The Expanding Role of Ketogenic Diets in Adult Neurological Disorders.” Brain Sciences 8, no. 8 (August 8, 2018): 148. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci8080148. Koppel, Scott J., and Russell H. Swerdlow. “Neuroketotherapeutics: A Modern Review of a Century-Old Therapy.” Neurochemistry International 117 (July 2018): 114–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuint.2017.05.019. White, Hayden, Karthik Venkatesh, and Bala Venkatesh. “Systematic Review of the Use of Ketones in the Management of Acute and Chronic Neurological Disorders.” Journal of Neurology and Neuroscience 08, no. 02 (2017). https://doi.org/10.21767/2171-6625.1000188. Prins, Mayumi L., and Joyce H. Matsumoto. “The Collective Therapeutic Potential of Cerebral Ketone Metabolism in Traumatic Brain Injury.” Journal of Lipid Research 55, no. 12 (December 2014): 2450–57. https://doi.org/10.1194/jlr.R046706. |
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The answer is more often “yes” when referring to academic studies, as your Wikipedia source calls out via a reference to https://gwern.net/doc/statistics/2016-cook.pdf > A 2016 study of a sample of academic journals (not news publications) that set out to test Betteridge's law and Hinchliffe's rule (see below) found that few titles were posed as questions and of those, few were yes/no questions and they were more often answered "yes" in the body of the article rather than "no". Thankfully the underlying study doesn’t pose a question, and the article we are discussing here is an academic hypothesis more than news. |
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Yeast is what is targets. I know a psychiactric dr who found promose in feeding patients refined coconut oil. The craprylic acid is what makes up the triglicerides in it. Those kill yeast.
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