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Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

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Re: Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

#91

Post by gexla »

elliotec wrote: post #4

I can't help but think "finally" and "told ya so" regarding this news. It's difficult to describe how massively my life changed when I started keto. Like the subject of the article, I've had Bipolar (1 in my case, they didn't specify their version) for most of my life, since way before it's supposed to manifest in late adolescence. I was misdiagnosed here and there since I was a very young child, but I finally got on…

When I was on a keto phase, one day I noticed that I was so clear headed and energetic that I thought something broke inside me. It was like a persistent coffee kick without the side-effects. I realized that the feeling was probably how "normal" should feel. It changed my views about a lot of things. I would walk down the road and realize how many business fronts were restaurants, of which I had no desire to enter. I never bothered with any checks for keto, I just ate loads of low carb veggies, a little bit of meat, and coconut oil for added fat. A note on the oil, I had to make sure that I took it with meat, or else I would get sick to my stomach.

My lifestyle changed once I got a live-in partner. I need to get back on it.

Re: Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

#92

Post by krisoft »

saiya-jin wrote: post #58
ilitirit wrote: post #51

I don't think you really need keto, but I think many people could benefit from just training themselves to eat fewer times a day, and developing an aversion to sugar and unhealthy food in general. I don't eat breakfast - haven't done so for more than 20 years. It doesn't affect my enerygy levels or mood. It always made me wonder why we even had it in the first place. All I have is a cup of black coffee, no sugar. Som…

You must realize the world and humanity is bigger than you. Some people with low blood sugar would be very weak without breakfast (ie my wife and most of her family, tested repeatedly under various real world situations ie in wilderness). Some thrive like that. Some, like me, don't care if they have or don't have breakfast, nothing visibly changes for me (unless I want to bulk a bit from ie weightlifting or generally…

> as per doctor's findings it was due to that coffee habit,

This doesn't mean much. It's not like the doctor put your classmate under a "causo-scope" and that indicated beyond any shadow of a doubt that it was the black coffee which caused the issue.

It's more like the doctor performed tests for a few things it could be and when found no other alternative explanation he just said something. At best the doctor was thinking about a study showing correlation between black coffee drinking and stomach problems. At worst he just propagated some old wives tale.

This is no dig on the doctor. And certainly no opinion on what caused your classmate's problem. It's just sometimes the answer is that we do not know and cannot know. And the "as per doctor's findings" makes it sound more authoritative than it truly is.

Re: Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

#93

Post by wouldbecouldbe »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #68
jdietrich wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can't help but think "finally" and "told ya so" regarding this news. I don't want to dismiss your personal experiences, but I think that's the wrong conclusion to draw. Common mental illnesses - particularly depression and anxiety - have incredibly high placebo response rates. Everything looks like a promising treatment for depression in an uncontrolled trial. You can pick practically any intervention - including…

It's questionable whether it's placebo, or whether the placebo intervention itself is a non-placebo intervention. To partake in a study you need to get out of the house, go somewhere new, talk to new people a few times, do something new, get some daylight, etc. Those are all things we know has a positive effect on depression. Big part of treating depression is to make people do those sorts of things, despite their bo…

Did you read the story, OP has no depression but BiPolar with psychotic episodes and was previously put on epileptic medicine

Re: Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

#94

Post by yurishimo »

kilmanio wrote: post #82
yurishimo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all these things work exactly the same way: by limiting your calorie intake. While this is broadly true, I think it's also important to convey that the hormones involved also play a huge role. There are plenty of people who stay in a calorie deficit* and still gain weight because they spike insulin with a snack or a meal every two hours. Keto works so well because it doesn't spike insulin as much, on top of the gre…

But then aren't they by definition not at a calorie deficit?

Correct, if your BMR lowers drastically due to sustained increased insulin levels, then you're not at a deficit. However, most doctors are not trained to know that this is what is happening. Every BMR calculator will tell you that you are burning X number of calories, but the only way to verify that is with an expensive lab test that is generally reserved for athletes or extremely ill individuals. So instead, the doctor assumes that the patient must be lying about their calorie intake.

There are "symptoms" for a lowered BMR, feeling cold being chief among them as lowering blood circulation is an easy way for the body to slow down. Mental fog is can be another sign as our brain is the most calorically demanding organ in our entire body.

This model of hormonal driven weight loss/gain is fairly new and just now being studied at scale. Hopefully as time passes, doctors will become better educated and can advise their patients on how best to structure their diet to make their bodies work for them instead of against them.

I highly recommend watching some lectures by Dr Jason Fung about the issue in depth. There are a few on YouTube that are 45+ minutes in length and describe the situation more thoroughly. The TL;DW though is this: if insulin levels are high, the body cannot release stored fat. Eating raises insulin. If you eat all the time, your body will always have high insulin levels and cannot release stored fat for energy and thus will look for other ways to equalize the calories in/out equation.

The fastest way to lose weight, is to simply not eat. It sounds so simple and obvious, yet we've lost sight of the plot in our modern world.

Re: Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

#95

Post by ilitirit »

saiya-jin wrote: post #58
ilitirit wrote: post #51

I don't think you really need keto, but I think many people could benefit from just training themselves to eat fewer times a day, and developing an aversion to sugar and unhealthy food in general. I don't eat breakfast - haven't done so for more than 20 years. It doesn't affect my enerygy levels or mood. It always made me wonder why we even had it in the first place. All I have is a cup of black coffee, no sugar. Som…

You must realize the world and humanity is bigger than you. Some people with low blood sugar would be very weak without breakfast (ie my wife and most of her family, tested repeatedly under various real world situations ie in wilderness). Some thrive like that. Some, like me, don't care if they have or don't have breakfast, nothing visibly changes for me (unless I want to bulk a bit from ie weightlifting or generally…

> You must realize the world and humanity is bigger than you.

That's exactly why I said "many people could", not "everyone will".

Re: Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

#96

Post by srid »

TruthWillHurt wrote: post #37

Hell, if I was eating steaks every day my mood would improve too...

I did this for a while. It was great in the beginning, but gets boring soon. I now do quite well on eggs and ground beef. Been eating like this for many years now: https://srid.ca/carnivore-diet

Re: Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

#97

Post by redeeman »

tmikaeld wrote: post #18
redeeman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What source does huel black use for D12?

You can ask in their forum https://discuss.huel.com/ , they usually respond quickly

as far as I know, the only real sources of it is from animal, even when you buy it as a supplement, so unless they have something very unusual, I would think it either is lacking essential vitamins, or cannot be vegan

Re: Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

#98

Post by gibagger »

toomim wrote: post #21
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #12

I mean we already know switching to a keto based diet can have massive effects on the brain, it's been used to treat seizures since the 1920s, so it's not surprising it would have more effects.

And fasting has been a part of human spiritual (read: "psychological") practices for millennia. It's no surprise that it does something to the psyche.

Regardless of spiritual or psychological practices. Fact is food was generally nowhere near as available as it is now for the vast majority of our evolution as a species.

We didn't evolve around day-long snacking.

Re: Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

#99

Post by stefs »

ilitirit wrote: post #51

I don't think you really need keto, but I think many people could benefit from just training themselves to eat fewer times a day, and developing an aversion to sugar and unhealthy food in general. I don't eat breakfast - haven't done so for more than 20 years. It doesn't affect my enerygy levels or mood. It always made me wonder why we even had it in the first place. All I have is a cup of black coffee, no sugar. Som…

well, "you don't think" but it'd be nice to know. the article discusses a lot of problems that may or may not linked to each other and keto might have positive effects, but the "why" and "how" isn't completely proven. there's a mention of reduced insulin sensitivity, where insulin medication has the same effect as keto. this you probably wouldn't get from just eating less if the diet choice doesn't take insulin levels into account. some improvements might come from the weight loss, that often - but not necessarily - comes with keto. a big part of the ketogenic diet are leafy greens (i mean, besides meat, what else is there to eat?) which might have a huge impact on the microbial landscape in the gut, which also affects the immune system, etc.

so the question isn't "keto is the cure-all so why don't you do it?" but "the ketogenic diet results in curious effects, so what part of the diet affects which issues and why" and "how do the effects of the ketogenic diet differ from (pure weight-loss effects of) other diets"?

Re: Patients say keto helps with mental illness. Science is racing to understand why

#100

Post by wouldbecouldbe »

gexla wrote: post #91
elliotec wrote: post #4

I can't help but think "finally" and "told ya so" regarding this news. It's difficult to describe how massively my life changed when I started keto. Like the subject of the article, I've had Bipolar (1 in my case, they didn't specify their version) for most of my life, since way before it's supposed to manifest in late adolescence. I was misdiagnosed here and there since I was a very young child, but I finally got on…

When I was on a keto phase, one day I noticed that I was so clear headed and energetic that I thought something broke inside me. It was like a persistent coffee kick without the side-effects. I realized that the feeling was probably how "normal" should feel. It changed my views about a lot of things. I would walk down the road and realize how many business fronts were restaurants, of which I had no desire to enter. I…

It's same for fasting, your body wants clarity for you to be able to hunt & provide food. After a meal you rest & digest. Take Lions after a meal, even though we are different it's a common pattern.
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