A mystery of the ketogenic diet: benevolent pseudo-diabetes in mice (2019)
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Simply because of how strict keto is I began to read the breakdown for every single thing I purchase in the store. This may seem obvious to all but I never did it to the degree I do now. There is sugar in everything and the serving sizes are often completely ridiculous - I saw a protein bar where the serving size was half the bar! Other diets teach you food groups to eat and encourage but don't seem to have this side effect of teaching you just how messed up some packaged foods are.
I still think most people should not follow the diet without breaks, deficiencies simply exist in this one as well. I like my apple and also could not stand the sight of broccoli and cauliflower for a long time after finishing it.
I'm living now according to some kind of relaxed low carb method, combined with occasional interval fasting (also allowing ketosis).
Can you expand on this part? Never heard of this before.
My problem is simply controlling the portion sizes of my delicious food - it's SO easy to eat large portions, and it takes weeks of ignoring your stomach's rumbling to get yourself used to reduced portions.
It's not for everyone though; I've just been doing it for a while.
I did 16/8, lunch and dinner so I could eat with the rest of the family. Worked quite well, lost a ton of weight without feeling like I had to do anything. The first couple of days I was starving by the end of the 16 hour break, but I got over it much faster than the constant feeling I need to eat something I get with portion control.
As you said, doesn't work well for everyone though. I'd guess that it maybe works for me cause of the ADHD, as I may still get to have those endorphin hits when eating something I like. I should probably try going back to it, now that we're talking about it...
https://www.usdairy.com/news-articles/does-milk-have-sugar#:....
I use cronometer to track nutrients (macro & micro). It uses data source directly from NCCDB from the University of Minnesota.
I was trying to avoid sugar (i.e. Sucrose + Fructose, except for actual fruit), and replace oils and butter with olive oil. And for breakfast/lunch (because I still want to eat a normal dinner with my family) I eat the best possible versions of those. Porridge, Greek yoghurt, fruit and nuts.
AFAIK this is virtually impossible if done as required by keto (the carbohydrate limit is quite tight, it is violated very quickly without objective bookkeeping) and you also control protein intake. The liver's glycogen store lasts about a day, after which you need to burn fat (maybe some muscle glycogen).
Diets in general also tend toward caloric deficit, resulting in weight loss.
Ketogenic diets are used to treat epileptic seizures but haven’t otherwise been studied in large enough populations to understand the ramifications of long-term glucose deficits in the human body. YMMV just be safe.
* For my friends that find Keto effective it seem their bodies seem to find fat/protein super satiating.
* For my friends that find volume eating effective it seems like their hunger is more triggered on "stuff in stomach" where I can't stand that feeling.
* For my friends that like IF their hunger seems to be time based. The common element for my IF friends is that they started their journey very overweight and so it's been years since they were actually hungry.
* For me and my other ED friends we all seem to deal with hunger by getting over the initial pang and then just not eating until our bodies give up trying and then just coast on that. Obviously don't do this.
How's the "long-term glucose surplus" control group doing?
(Kind of kidding, but it's not obvious why the "less exogenous glucose" condition would be a priori the risky one!)
1. Someone stops consuming carbohydrates
2. This causes them to produce significantly less insulin
3. In order to preserve ~~insulin~~ glucose for the brain, other insulin receptors are downregulated
4. Because of this downregulation, the subject is less tolerant of carbohydrates
This is "pseudo-diabetes" and not "diabetes" because a person on a ketogenic diet isn't producing insulin, whereas a diabetic can't produce (enough) insulin, or is so desensitized to it that glucose stays in the blood steam.
1) Consume external drug
2) Receptors downregulate (thanks to homeostasis)
3) Need more of said drug or withdrawals kick in (analogous to needing to take external insulin so body can get rid of excess glucose)
4) Rinse & repeat
From a United States perspective: What we have is a duopoly of Big Pharma and Big Ag that gets people hooked on sugar and then uses medicine-as-a-service to hook them on insulin forever. There is no money in preventative medicine.
There are other countries in the world that have already taken steps to get junk foods and sugary drinks out of the hands of children [0]. What excuses does the United States have?
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/aug/06/mexico-oaxaca-s...
People are told time and again that it's healthcare system. Yeah, it's not health / customer focused. But all the more reason to do a decent job at avoiding that system. Instead, the status quo diet + lifestyle persists. (Political) leaders can't risk the push back trying to change the narrative.
Only red blood cells and a couple other actually need glucose.
I think nature might know something we don't know.
The current method of testing for ketones is ketones freely available in blood stream. The ketones are released by the liver when it’s too full of them and thus they spill over to the blood stream. The consequence therefore is that once you’re fully keto adapted, your ketones won’t spike too high as your body can efficiently generate the required amount.
Most people who do a long fast, they’ll have 1+mmol (higher at 3+) ketones, whereas someone who’s adapted maintains sub 1mmol.
Also, if all you’re eating is protein and large fats, youre producing ketones otherwise you’d die as there’s no carbs/glucose. So yeah, Inuit and carnivore diet people couldn’t exist.
live experiments and observations are a thing, and they are happening everywhere if you do a quick search
It's still very good data and very interesting, but it raises more questions then it answers, and effectively points out that we have no clue how these metabolic pathways actually operate outside of specific circumstances.
Edit: I'm in no way condemning this paper, on the contrary, I think it's great. This is good science.
I make no effort to count calories or control portions.
But, that's what healthy living habits are: Finding what works for you!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2017/16_0287.htm#:~:text=By%2...
Everyday, I worry there is some terrible trade off, but signs of pre-diabetes and pre-non-alcoholic-fatty-liver-syndrome were bad enough in my mind that whatever the trade off is likely won’t kill me faster than either of those.
Have always thought my Ketogenic diet period, which I ran for about 9 months approx 1.5 years before diagnose, could have had something to do with me ‘developing’ type 1. Did discuss this with my doc, she assured me they found the markers in my blood work indicating auto immune disease etc.
Still intrigued by these kind of papers that seem to relate the different topics.
Started of doing SKD, so strict Keto diet, with about less than 50 grams of carbs a day. Mostly meats, cheeses, eggs, green veggies etc.
After about 4 months added more carbs till about probably 100 a 150 grams, so maybe more considered low carb. Did mix on some MCT every once in a while.
Was olympic lifting during that while period, so twice a week gym routine.
Con's: - Frequented the bathroom a lot more - Couldn't lift as heavy in the gym - Scheduling meals was a pain
If you’re looking for a crash diet (which isn’t a great idea to begin with), there are easier and healthier ones than keto. There are no scenarios where it would be the best choice, and that’s if you’re doing one of the more sensible versions of the diet, opposed to the even more insane unlimited-fat-calories versions.
A keto diet restricts both carb and protein intake. It’s 80% or more calories from fat. Carbs OR protein in excess of that will suppress ketosis.
It’s really interesting to see the diet industry attack this. Calling it a “fad diet” as if eating low carbs is somehow a fad. Other things I’ve seen are essentially “keto diets are for treating epilepsy, not for losing weight!” Etc.
Keto diets don’t require you to buy any products or books or take any courses or anything. Just literally read the nutrition facts and eat 20-50 carbs a day.
If you are struggling with obesity I highly recommend trying a low carb diet.
Keto is EASY compared to any other diet I've tried for one key reason: you don't feel hungry.
You can eat as much as you want, whenever you like. Soon enough though the effects kick in, your hunger is supressed, and you have to remind yourself to eat at times.
No matter how enthusiastic you are at the start, hunger quickly erodes willpower. I failed miserably at the typical low-fat diet. Keto was the cheat code.
This is also a "hack" to get into clothes that are a little too tight way faster. Your body basically shrinks a little.
The only downside that I can think of it was really, really, really, REALLY boring.
so boring in fact that after a while I did not look forward to eating - while normally I am a foodie and just love to eat, when I did keto that wish to eat was gone.
however I still would very much recommend keto if you can find the life setting that supports you doing keto, because I can guarantee you that other members of your family will not want to eat what you eat- once or twice, MAYBE, but not all the time.
> Keto diets don’t require you to buy any products or books or take any courses or anything. Just literally read the nutrition facts and eat 20-50 carbs a day.
But that's the issue, isn't it?
Sometimes I feel like changing my usual snack of apples with some kind of biscuit / cookie. It's next to impossible to find anything below 500 kCals / 100 g at my local grocery store. And when I look at the ingredients, there's always a ton of sugar in there.
The only lower-ish processed food I can easily find is sorbet. But that's impractical to deal with at work (we don't have a freezer).
So most of the time, I end up buying nothing if I don't feel like an apple. Why would "big ag" cheer me in going this route?
I should note I'm not even into Keto or anything, just paying attention to how many calories I eat.
Typically you're swapping flour for almond flour and sugar for erythritol.
I'm in France, so the only time I've seen beef jerky in my life was when some dude I used to know brought some from the US. Furthermore, I'm really not sure if we have anything similar over here.
Note, I said I wasn't doing keto (never have) so I don't specifically look for no-carb options. I just realize that those foods are more like "cravings", so they won't make me eat less during the regular meals. If I want to reduce my calorie intake, I need to cut somewhere. So I usually look into cutting the calories of the snacks. While I love almonds and other dried fruits (and their butter), they typically have a lot of calories. IIRC, pistachios have something like 600 kCals and I can easily eat way too many.
I usually tend to buy protein bars from a sporting goods store, which have the benefit of making me feel full after one or two, and make me eat noticeably less at the following meal. But said store is quite out of my way, so I don't always have those on hand, and they do have a bit too much sugar for my taste.
The “eat less carbs” message is great IMO but I think a lot of people need to eat less period. Personally I found that intentionally eating high-protein foods was a good way for me to be satiated with less carbs. A protein bar will fill me up, a chunk of cheese with twice as many calories won’t.
But I also acknowledge that people are different. I’m sure there people who are easily satiated by fat and can therefore eat unmetered fatty foods and lose weight.
I've known a few heavy people over the years who claimed to be eating keto and never seemed to be losing any weight. Whenever we hung out they would use their purported keto diet as a green-light to get extra meat and cheese in whatever we were doing, and inevitably they would also eat carbs. French fries, beers, late night donuts, ice cream, the usual slip-ups.
If a person lacks self-discipline, a keto diet turns into an extremely fattening diet. It does not degrade gracefully at all. You have to either stick to it and stay in ketosis, or reel in your fat consumption something fierce because it'll all get stored as fat when you're running on glucose.
It's kind of a major flaw with ketogenic diets IMHO. The diet inherently gets a person into a habit of consuming rich, fatty foods. But when they slip up, which let's be honest, most people will. It becomes something along the lines of the most fattening diet possible.
I think of it like a see-saw, with protein level being the axis of rotation (ie., it stays the same). Now you have 2 remaining macro variables: carbs and fat. If you decrease one, you need to increase the other or else caloric intake might be too low.
Keto community generally refers to the diet as Low Carb High Fat because not eating enough fat can cause problems on the diet.
Edit: To be clear, assuming sufficient consumption of protein, if calories are still deficient, keto community recommends making up the deficit with fat rather than protein.
Physically fit people don't buy their magic pills and weight loss programs.
You would be amazed by the amount of supplement pills and powders with which many "fit and healthy" people fill up their cabinets, while paying 1000s of dollars for beach body DVD programs, apps, overpriced kitchen appliances and branded gear. It's just a different industry that is selling you the illusion.
I find that keto excludes a huge portion of the population that is not willing to give up complex carbs in some capacity. As long as they drop outright sugars and grains, a person should still be able to get the advantage of keto while being on a more follow-able keto-lite.
While I generally agree with you, I think many people have a strong rebound after a few months, that does not teach adequate portion size for later on, and after some age and some health conditions, it can put stress on kidney / liver
a third column of "how it works" is the same for all rows: "calorie restriction"
I've been doing a half-hearted keto and losing weight because I'm just eating a lot less by skipping pizza and breakfast bagels and honestly just don't have many meals in my cooking repetoire, so it's either protein shake or meat on top of salad.
I don't think that you have to be calorie-restricted to benefit from a ketogeneic diet.
The climber Dave MacLeod has a 4-hour long video that seems (to my untrained eye) to have a number of good sources. He also has a masters degree in nutrition and is a professional athlete.
He describes how underfeeding was indeed a problem with his early experiments with this approach to diet, but how it's been quite effective after being careful to eat enough.
Weight gain = calories in - calories out
I've had incredible success with keto, but I did yo-yo back, the downside of keto being so easy is that it's hard to get back into it, knowing that you'll almost effortlessly get results eventually, so I'm nutritionally procrastinating.
I've been strict keto now for over five years. Prior to that I was clinically obese for decades. I tried lots of different dieting approaches and most of them "worked" to lose weight to some extent. The issue was I would always regain the weight because I couldn't maintain the diet due to the constant hunger and sense of deprivation. While all diets, including keto, ultimately "work" through calorie reduction. The unique aspect of keto for me was it was the only approach that allowed me to reduce calories without hunger or deprivation.
N=1 and individual metabolisms and preferences are different, so I don't try to extrapolate my results to everyone. All I can say is that after struggling for so long with so many other approaches, keto worked for me so fast, so easily and so well - it does feel almost like a hack.
Pointing out the thermodynamics of weight loss with calories in/out is stupid though because there is a huge dependency in the amount of calories consumed based on the type of food and if the food has been engineered to taste super good.
Protein is as calorie dense as carbs, and fat is twice as calorie dense as carbs. So it isn't mere volume of food in the stomach that causes the difference - if it was, it would be easier to overeat on protein/fats than on carbs.
Basically, it sounds like you're treating the human body like some black hole that calories get thrown into, when in reality there is a very complex feedback loop taking place based on what your bodily inputs and outputs are.
1 - https://www.amazon.com/Fat-Switch-Richard-J-Johnson-ebook/dp...
2 - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rick-johnson-m-d-metab...
What was impressive though was how long it took and how slow the gain progressed. Because keto calories tend to be so satiating, it almost felt like I had to work at getting my energy balance to stay meaningfully positive. When I'm full on natural fats, it's hard to keep eating. The other interesting thing was, even though I gained some weight, I maintained most of the non-weight related benefits (cognitive, emotional balance). My guess is this may be due to keto calories being almost all fresh, unprocessed foods.
I'd guess you kept the mental benefits because you were still in ketosis. While I'm sure being leaner (if you were overweight) contributes to some mental benefits (body image, feeling healthier), perhaps most are simply from running on ketones.
Even after so many years in strict keto, I still can't tease out where exactly which benefits come from between calorie reduction, ketosis, gut microbiome, etc. I feel like it's definitely a combination of more than one of the above but teasing it out would require too much experimentation and I'm reluctant to 'mess with success'.
Why exactly do I need to know this equation? My body can do that for me automatically.
I'm genuinely fascinated that you prefaced this clearly-not-an-anecdote with "just an anecdote". If it had been an anecdote, it would have been fine without the preface. Instead it's a sweeping claim that at best requires several anecdotes to support it.
>a short amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person.
>keto is so effect [for me] that it feels like a hack [to me].
This is literally an anecdote.
"Mice-based studies that omit “mice” from title get 31% more media coverage"
https://www.psychnewsdaily.com/mice-based-alzheimers-studies...