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Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain

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Re: Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain

#81
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone I know who is on a carnivore diet has a high enough fat:protein ratio to stay in ketosis most of/all the time. The value of that seems to be pretty common wisdom among carnivores.

Unless one has too much lean meat. The body will convert excess protien into carbs. It's better to stick with fatty cuts only.

This also depends on eating frequency. If someone has a very low eating frequency, like a single meal every 72 hours, even a meal of lean meat may not knock a person out of ketosis, at least for very long. I've fasted that long and eaten a huge meal of lean meat, multiple times, and my keto testing strips always remain dark purple.

As much as I think keto and carnivore are lightyears past the average American's diet, I've found them difficult to maintain because they're very restrictive and I lack the energy to be effective when working out, which is common. Fasting in combination with a low carb diet, even one that incorporates things like berries, has been much more effective and easy to maintain in my experience. Combining macronutrition with eating frequency reduces the penalty of eating carbs or lots of protein by making it much easier to get back into ketosis. When you force your body to burn through its glycogen stores, and you give it no choice but to use your fat store, ketosis will come back in no time.

So you are definitely correct that fatty cuts are better, most of the time, but with fasting the protein to fat ratio almost becomes a non-issue.

Re: Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People confuse it with ketoacidosis, which is very dangerous. Ketosis is benign.

The biggest issue with ketogenic diets is elevated level of cholesterol, which is generally considered harmful, though there are different views on this topic.

This is a side effect of how many people eating keto diets go all in on meat and cheeses. Vegan keto is possible: https://www.reddit.com/r/veganketo/

Re: Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain

#83
post #57
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This should indicate that intermittent fasting I came to comment the same thing. First an aside that I agree with Peter Attia that IF is a confusing term, and instead Time Restricted Feeding (TRF) should be used. The current thought seems to be that many of the benefits from TRF (ie, skipping breakfast) come from causing the body to start generating ketones.

I'd be cautious if you're doing TRF by skipping breakfast. >Interestingly, TRF improved weight loss and cardiometabolic endpoints—such as insulin levels, insulin sensitivity, and blood pressure—when participants ate early or in the middle of the day [18,19,41,42,43,44,45], but worsened cardiometabolic health or had null effects when participants ate late in the day [46,47,48]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article…

My largest meal of the day has naturally become lunch. My dinner is typically a few hours before bed. So, maybe I'm not bumping into what the study above found. I sleep fine.

Since I started TRF ~2 years ago I have dropped BF, and am the leanest I have ever been. I've always been very active and tend to exercise every day, but have never been this 'cut'. I also tended to eat ok naturally. I'm not a sweets person, and when I cleaned up my diet a few years back the main thing I dropped was potato chips (I love that crunchy, salty goodness). But even after cleaning up my diet I still wasn't getting the BF % I was interested so thought I'd give TFR a try. It's been awesome. I have more energy, and am in the best shape of my life.

Re: Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain

#84
post #61

The title is terrible, it should read ketosis/ketones may prevent, reverse age-related effects within the brain. "Low carb" as the title currently reads does not necessarily result in ketosis and your body/brain running on ketones, which appears to be the scope of this study. There is more to dietary ketosis than low carb, just as an example carnivore or paleo diets are low carb, but those will generally not result i…

I am having trouble agreeing with the statement that "...your body will convert the protein to glucose..." Could you elaborate on that logic?

A few parts of your body can't operate on ketones, so there's a backup mechanism to produce glucose from protein (from muscle breakdown, if necessary) called gluconeogenesis.

However, There's no evidence I've see that gluconeogenesis can kick you out of ketosis. As far as I know, gluconeogensis is demand-driven, not supply-driven, so there won't be any extra glucose running around for your ketone-consuming cells to use, regardless of your protein intake.

Disclaimer: I'm not a nutritionist or biologist.

Re: Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain

#85

The title is terrible, it should read ketosis/ketones may prevent, reverse age-related effects within the brain. "Low carb" as the title currently reads does not necessarily result in ketosis and your body/brain running on ketones, which appears to be the scope of this study. There is more to dietary ketosis than low carb, just as an example carnivore or paleo diets are low carb, but those will generally not result i…

I always thought it wasn't recommended to stay in ketosis for more than 2 weeks at a time?

Re: Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain

#86
I’m confused because I thought the brain liked sugars:

“The bold implication of this idea is that the effects of ego depletion could be undone by ingesting glucose, and Baumeister and his colleagues have confirmed this hypothesis in several experiments.”

Kahneman, D. “Thinking, Fast and Slow”. 2011. pg. 43, para. 2, Se. 5.

Re: Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People confuse it with ketoacidosis, which is very dangerous. Ketosis is benign.

The biggest issue with ketogenic diets is elevated level of cholesterol, which is generally considered harmful, though there are different views on this topic.

Lots of people on ketogenic diets are losing weight. The process of losing weight will naturally increase your cholesterol.

You're right, there are different views on this topic, in particular in the types of cholesterol elevated and decreased.

Re: Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain

#90
post #76
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to ask if intermittent fasting would have the same effects as I get the impression that its a healthier way of getting into ketosis. (When I look, I don't see negative effects associated with IF, and I do with keto diets. The research changes a lot and the conclusions don't seem definitive, but I thought someone on here might have an educated opinion on the matter).

In my personal case I'm not really able to enter and maintain good ketosis levels without also fasting intermittently. Intermittent fasting is key to enabling me to lower my caloric input because of the momentum of the fasting phase carried over into the eating phase, e.g. smaller stomach and more effective metabolism. I currently fast about 12 hours per day (including the sleep phase), which doesn't sound like much…

As an N of one, I present my situation:

Since mid-January this year I have been fasting intemittently. I have zero calories before 5PM, and I am usually in bed by 10. I exercise most weeks between 4 and six days, but only two or so are "vigorous" for me. My workouts are mid-day.

When I eat, I eat normally for me, which is lower carb and higher protein, but not (knowingly) keto or anything.

I have lost about 10 pounds.

I just got my blood lab results, and they are the worst numbers I have ever seen. Highest fasting glucose (borderline diabetic, a rise of 14 points or so from memory), highest cholesterol (doc's gonna make me take meds if it doesn't come down).

I've done this before, but wouldn't I would "only" wait until 2, and I got bad (but not this bad) results as well. I decided to try again, making my eating window truly shorter, but alas...

I was devastated by the results. Total bummer.

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