Comment by intended | Hacker News Reader

Comment by intended | Hacker News Reader

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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).

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.

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

> 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.

"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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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).

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).

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.

That's me as well, getting into ketosis has absolutely changed my life for the better.

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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