Adventures in Ketosis (long)

I was specifically targeting my triglycerides and trying to get them below 80 as my doctor recommended for best metabolic and cardiovascular health. In his opinion 150 as an upper limit is way too high to be healthy.

The South Beach diet is more of a moderate carbs, moderate fat, moderate protein diet. Yes, it’s lower carb than the standard American Diet and also focused on real foods which is good.

Ketosis has a bunch of therapeutic benefits so I choose to stick with that approach.

Dr. Phinney has a video series about ketogenic diets and health from Virta Health. https://www.virtahealth.com/blog/dr-stephen-phinney-ketosis-ketogenic-diets
 
Last edited:
audreyh1 said:
The biochemistry has to do with decreasing mTOR. https://thefastingmethod.com/fasting-and-autophagy-mtor-autophagy-1/. mTOR is sensitive to nutrient intake.
Click to expand...

But if you are in ketosis, your liver is always chock full of lipids, and your cells will be high in energy. So the AMPK path is closed:

"AMPK detects the AMP/ATP ratio and when this ratio is high (low cellular energy levels), AMPK is activated. Low cellular energy = high AMPK so this is sort of a reverse fuel gauge of cellular energy status. When AMPK is high (low fuel), this shuts down fatty acid synthesis and activates autophagy.

This makes sense. If your cells don’t have energy, it will not want to store energy (make fat), but instead will want to activate autophagy – getting rid of excess protein and possible burning it for energy."


The graphic lists some mTOR inhibitors (good thing) which are all antioxidants, such as turmeric & resveratrol, which you ought to be getting plenty of in your supplements.

"When mTOR goes up, it shuts down autophagy."

SO on a ketogenic diet, I don't see any benefit to daily fasting.
And keto may keep your metabolism higher by a significant amount:


https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2669724
January 16, 2018
Interest in the Ketogenic Diet Grows for Weight Loss and Type 2 Diabetes
Jennifer Abbasi
JAMA. 2018;319(3):215-217. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.20639

the ketogenic diet may not affect metabolism the same way other diets do. In a previous study, Ludwig found that metabolism slowed by more than 400 kcal/d on a low-fat diet while there was no significant decline in metabolic rate on a very low-carb diet.

“The quality of calories consumed may affect the number of calories burned,” he said. “If this apparent metabolic benefit persists, it could play an important role in improving the success of long-term weight-loss maintenance.”

Weight Loss on a High-Fat Diet
Despite decades of dietary guidelines promoting low-fat eating, around 40% of US adults and 19% of US children are now obese. What’s worse, more than half of today’s children are expected to be obese by age 35 years, according to recent modeling at Harvard.
>
 
Last edited:
Is this thread strictly a ketosis discusison topic? Or is the wider obesity topic, which ketogenic approaches may try to attempt to address, fair game?
 
Just wanted to add some links regarding covid.

Several papers out about COVID and more serious disease with higher blood insulin/glucose.

Admission hyperglycaemia as a predictor of mortality in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 regardless of diabetes status: data from the Spanish SEMI-COVID-19 Registry https://covid19.elsevierpure.com/en...emia-as-a-predictor-of-mortality-in-patients-

A Machine-Generated View of the Role of Blood Glucose Levels in the Severity of COVID-19 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.695139/full

An one today about how very low carb enhances immune function.
Very-low-carbohydrate diet enhances human T-cell immunity through immunometabolic reprogramming https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.15252/emmm.202114323
 
Last edited:
audreyh1 said:
Several papers out about COVID and more serious disease with higher blood insulin/glucose.

Admission hyperglycaemia as a predictor of mortality in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 regardless of diabetes status: data from the Spanish SEMI-COVID-19 Registry https://covid19.elsevierpure.com/en...emia-as-a-predictor-of-mortality-in-patients-

A Machine-Generated View of the Role of Blood Glucose Levels in the Severity of COVID-19 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.695139/full
Click to expand...


No real surprise here. As we have discussed before, about 88% of Americans are in poor metabolic health. People in poor metabolic health are predisposed to all sorts of bad health outcomes, including COVID-19.


One thing that has been missing from the whole COVID discussion is that, if Americans (and this applies to many other countries as well) were in better metabolic health, a LOT fewer deaths (and serious illness) would have resulted when a COVID infection was acquired. People in good metabolic health have stronger immune systems, and in general are better able to deal with viral and bacterial infections, and recover from them.



Vaccines are great, but unless we put more emphasis on maintaining good metabolic health (through healthier lifestyles), the next virus that comes along is also likely lead to much more death and serious illness than necessary.
 
Another thing some pointed out on another forum, is that if you’ve had high insulin for many years, which might not be detected because your blood sugar has been under control, your blood vessels will already be inflamed. COVID adds to that inflammation.
 
audreyh1 said:
Another thing some pointed out on another forum, is that if you’ve had high insulin for many years, which might not be detected because your blood sugar has been under control, your blood vessels will already be inflamed. COVID adds to that inflammation.
Click to expand...

And a fasting insulin test is a cheap and easy way to check on that. Only $28 the last time I had it done.
 
braumeister said:
And a fasting insulin test is a cheap and easy way to check on that. Only $28 the last time I had it done.
Click to expand...

Very cheap.

Yet how many doctors test for it? Very few. They probably wouldn’t know what to do with the results anyway as they haven’t been trained to treat high insulin.

High insulin is the marker for insulin resistance and the root cause of metabolic syndrome and thus most chronic diseases.
 
audreyh1 said:
Very cheap.

Yet how many doctors test for it? Very few. They probably wouldn’t know what to do with the results anyway as they haven’t been trained to treat high insulin.

High insulin is the marker for insulin resistance and the root cause of metabolic syndrome and thus most chronic diseases.
Click to expand...


It should be a standard test given during routine health screening, but it isn't. I had to ask my doctor to order it, and he didn't have a problem doing that for me. Insurance covered it, and I can interpret the results myself, that's not an issue.
 
RAE said:
One thing that has been missing from the whole COVID discussion is that, if Americans (and this applies to many other countries as well) were in better metabolic health, a LOT fewer deaths (and serious illness) would have resulted when a COVID infection was acquired.
Click to expand...

+1

To put it bluntly, the majority of deaths from Covid happen to fat older people.

There’s nothing you can do about being old, but there is a lot you can do about being fat (and yes, I know it can be difficult, never-the-less).
 
RAE said:
It should be a standard test given during routine health screening, but it isn't. I had to ask my doctor to order it, and he didn't have a problem doing that for me. Insurance covered it, and I can interpret the results myself, that's not an issue.
Click to expand...
Most patients can’t do that. It’s an early warning sign for pre-diabetes and metabolic disease indicating that a change in diet is needed. But doctors haven’t been trained to use that tool nor how to counsel their patients about diet (and not tell them to eat low-fat high-carb which will make them sicker).

That 88% number is not going to go down unless this changes.

mpeirce said:
To put it bluntly, the majority of deaths from Covid happen to fat older people.

There’s nothing you can do about being old, but there is a lot you can do about being fat (and yes, I know it can be difficult, never-the-less).
Click to expand...
And there are plenty of people who have metabolic disease yet aren’t fat, so you can’t say it’s just fat people.
 
Last edited:
audreyh1 said:
It’s an early warning sign for pre-diabetes and metabolic disease indicating that a change in diet is needed.
Click to expand...

I have seen it described as a pre-pre-pre-diabetes test, and that's probably just about right.
 
braumeister said:
I have seen it described as a pre-pre-pre-diabetes test, and that's probably just about right.
Click to expand...

I think it gives a signal 15 to 20 years in advance.

Your poor body is working like crazy to keep that blood sugar low while the muscles and other organs develop insulin resistance due to excess insulin. And your fat stores can’t release their fat. It’s a vicious cycle.

And after 15 to 20 years your pancreas can’t keep up anymore and your blood sugar starts rising.

In the meantime excess insulin has done quite a number on your vascular system.
 
Re: insulin test

If inflammation is a bad thing, why get an insulin test to look for inflammation, when the C-reactive protein test does just that, flags inflammation?

If blood sugar is in control, and the C-reactive protein test flags inflammation, what is the compelling reason to get an insulin test? What new information does it bring to the table and why is it of clinical importance?
 
Because chronic high insulin means that you will develop diabetes because your pancreas will eventually give out. The process can takes years, decades. The sooner you find out, the sooner you can reverse it.

In the meantime you have developed insulin resistance and are doing a lot of damage to your body. Organs are damaged by excess insulin.

The inflammation is just an example side effect.

Anyway, you won’t know the source of the inflammation from just measuring C-reactive protein.
 
Last edited:
OK - for preaching to the choir - here is some top quality low-carb “propaganda” featuring the usual suspects. The recent movie Fat Fiction now available free on YouTube. Very well produced, lots of good info and historical perspective.
 
I just received my Humana Medicare newsletter, it has an article titled.



8 ways to eat a heart-healthy diet



It lists,

Get lots of fruits and vegetables (OP says, i.e. carbs)

Include nuts, legumes and seeds

Choose low-fat dairy

Eat low-fat meats

Limit unhealthy fats

Cut back on salt


Obvious, they are still towing the old line
 
So far so good. I had a slow start, and never test very high in ketosis but it is working. I did not have a huge initial weight loss but more of a steady burn. I am at the 5 week mark and it took a while to assemble a diet.
 
You know, the benefits of ketosis go way beyond weight loss. The main thing is reversing any metabolic health problems.

And by staying metabolically healthy you can avoid a lot of the common chronic diseases that otherwise only get worse with aging.

Supposedly only 12% of US adults are metabolically healthy. We are quite an elite group then!
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the thread. I did Low Carb 20 years ago and lost 40 pounds and kept in good shape for two years and then slowly started to gain. I did it again a year ago and lost 30 pounds and stopped in May and have gained it back. Covid didn't help, working from home with the kitchen stocked didn't help. Taking care of my wife after her Knee surgery didnt help. My wife doesn't do low carb :) All excuses though

Having a desk job doesn't help (Excuse) and I know when not on low carb I have low will power. Being on low carb I have no issues. It is always a domino effect of events that get me off (Excuse)

Going to go back on next week. My wife asked for a weeks notice before I restarted it

The difference here is come the end of the year I lose the desk job and will be more active. Most of my hobbies require activities and days I dont now work I take the dogs on a 4 mile walk to the Reservoir and Dog park. Probably why I am still alive :) That will become every day and I will use the gym I built in my house

The key is I know I can do this and lose weight and feel much better as a result. I know I can do this diet for months at a time. I am hopeful the change in my situation will keep the weight from coming back on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

J
My TULSA prostate cancer adventure
2
Replies
26
Views
3K
Koolau
Koolau
Markola
What supplements do you take? Benefits?
3 4 5
Replies
123
Views
11K
DrRoy
DrRoy
Amethyst
High Cholesterol despite correct weight, diet, exercise...What to do?
3 4 5
Replies
111
Views
10K
orbops
O
T
Last minute ACA paralysis
Replies
14
Views
1K
tmitchell
T
Romer
Hip pain only at night
2 3
Replies
52
Views
4K
Aerides
Aerides

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom