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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

#131
post #107
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is completely undifferentiated. whole wheat bread may work well for you but it completely fucks me up. a few slices a day for a few days and i'll start being at risk for throwing up at random times. nutrition is a hightly emotional laden topic and criticizing someone's diet often means criticizing their core values, but that doesn't mean medical experts can't bring their patient's dietary preferences into questi…

Yes, I agree with most of what you say. I'm sorry if my comment came across as aggressive. I didn't want to offend anybody. And of course, if you've got a gluten allergy regular bread won't work for you. I know that nutrition is not a one-size-fits-all thing. But you also have to agree that there are many keto snake oil salesmen. > keto doesn't work because people believe in quick fixes, it PROBABLY works because you…

i have the impression nutrition is a bit like religion. the right way, i.e. what a "balanced diet" means is heavily depends on the country you grew up in and how your parents did it. either this or you join a cult and swear by the one diet ... religulously.

thus critizicing one's diet is like saying: "your religion is trash", which is, not surprisingly, usually not taken well be the other.

in my experience, a healthy diet is mostly about two things: * restricting calories to reach a balanced CI-CO for a bodyweight in the healthy range * allowing caloric restriction without going insane

so it's technically less about the quality of the food (i.e. how healthy your meal ingredients are) and more about feeling satiated long enough to not go crazy from hunger pangs between meals. in practice, those two overlap a great deal: if your meals lack in certain nutrients you tend to become "hungry" - for those missing nutrients, but people on a "bad" diet just eat more of the usual stuff.

apart from that, people have different motives and preferences: there are bodybuilders who can happily scarf down the same prepared meals day in and out and would subsist on cardboard if possible as long as the macros are right. there are the foodies who'd rather starve than eat a meal that's not delicious. women may need other ingredients than men due to different hormone profiles. some people love the simplicity of drinkable meals that contain all the nutrients and don't care for solid food at all anymore, while for others that would be hell on earth.

the potato diet will not work for a gourmand. a low fat diet may not work for women who need certain essential fats more than men. a low carb diet might not work well for an athlete. etc.

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

#132
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd have to agree with this. A lot of anecdotes about people switching to keto and feeling better, but not giving the context of what kind of food they were eating beforehand. As I'm sure many of us know, a lot of software engineers (to be fair, this applies to most people as well) have very bad diets; buying fast food lunch every day, eating free snacks, etc.

Really wish people would stop invalidating others because of their own god damn protection. I haven't eaten fast food in decades. Cutting gluten changed my life. Go on everyone, tell me how I'm a fraud.

what irks me about dismissing people's experience is that is so unscientific.

The response should not be "surely they had crap diets" or "it's just placebo/it's just psychosomatic", it should be "uhm, I wonder why this is happening, let's investigate.

which is the whole point of the article, after all

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

#133
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…

The brain likes keto, no question. I'm not sure it is a good to do it for longer periods of time, it supposedly stresses the body [0]. I did it for a year and continually lost weight, and it wasn't for lack of calories. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qcAStYJwpg

The brain likes keto because of betahydroxybutyrate, though it's the only organ to require glucose (not a problem in keto as we have gluconeogenesis from fat and proteins)

You know what likes keto even more? Your heart. There are studies and research of fatty acids being able to reverse heart disease, and them being incredibly more efficient fuels than glucose is. N=1 placebo, but I certainly feel my heart (in an overweight body) pumping better and with less effort 1+ weeks into very low carb.

Adaptation takes a while because our mitochondria are dysfunctional due to standard diets being so high in glucose. Fatty acids are the better fuel for muscles, and mitochondria in general.

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

#134

As a person of normal weight, I tried a keto diet a couple of times but just couldn't get it working under vegetarian/vegan dietary restrictions for a daily work + workout schedule. I got either underfed to the point of fainting, had to rely on expensive restaurant meals and questionable supplements, or had to spent an enormous amount of time on meal preparation. So either I approached this in a completely wrong way…

Keto isn't normal for anyone. It's your body going into emergency starving mode. It might be good to do every now and then, just like fasting, but it's not normal. It's not easy for any type of diet and just a few carbs will kick you out of ketosis. But especially for Vegan, then it's mostly nuts & avocado's you can eat.

Sure, eating meat and vegetables avoiding processes cereals is not normal, but eating only plants with no animal proteins and fat is? A diet that literally is harmful to human children, and to adults without B12 supplementation?

Some people have negative knowledge on diets and how the body metabolises foods, yet are ready to share advice on the internet.

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

#135
post #32

I saw some improvements on my ADHD symptoms after doing keto for a week or so.

My meds definitely feel stronger one week into keto. Paired with the increased energy and better sleep, it feels like being on a constant caffeine high. Perhaps that's what normal people feel when they take stimulants.

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

#136
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wont kill you the way anorexia easily can. And fun fact: being slightly overweight is associated with best health results. The malnutrition from eating disorder really really sux and damages the body big time. > Not eating 2000+ extra calories of fast food every day has never put anyone in danger. Adolescents need 2500 or more daily, depending on gender activity level etc.

anorexia is a problem for a trivially small portion of the population. being slightly overweight might be fine, but most of the population isn't "slightly" overweight, they're clinically obese and are fat as fuck. As in, like 60% or more of the population is full-on overweight. the rest of the world is catching up quickly, too.

You can be obese and anorectic (it is called atypical anorexia). Simply said, if you are obese, you can starve yourself and cause serious issues without loosing all that weight first.

Plus, anorexia is not the only eating disorder there is.

Anorexia prevalence in females ranges from 0.3%-1.5% and for males range from 0.1%-0.5%. And it is raising. It happens to be the most deadly mental issue there is. Male mortality is higher, cause people associate it with women. That is not "trivially small".

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

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd really like to see a human try to tear raw flesh off an animal with their canines. I am highly skeptical that would work at all.

Me too. What gave you that impression it would be a reasonable interpretation of what I posted, or are you just trolling?

From your own quote:

> They do have canines that are pointy enough to serve the purpose of tearing meat.

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

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd really like to see a human try to tear raw flesh off an animal with their canines. I am highly skeptical that would work at all.

Me too. What gave you that impression it would be a reasonable interpretation of what I posted, or are you just trolling?

If that is not a reasonable interpretation then what are you trying to say? Humans are meant to eat meat but are physically incapable of performing the same actions that other meat eating animals can?

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

#139
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You have zero proof Proof of what? I fully accept that this guy finds keto really helpful and I have made no effort to dispute that. There is a world of difference between "a thing that some people find helpful" and "an evidence-based clinical intervention". >Just because there is no direct studies backing it up yet doesn't mean there isn't real effect. The entire point of my comment is that the chance of there bein…

It is actually not low. There are numerous studies on how cutting out gluten has positive health outcomes for schizophrenia, epilepsy, and autism. [1,2,3] Not to mention numerous anecdotes from diabetics about how going on keto got them to reduce or stop using insulin. As someone who has allergies and a ton of symptoms that were alleviated by cutting out foods, it is really tiresome to hear that it is placebo or it i…

> chronic sinus headaches

As I am writing this, I am going through something like this. Over a longer period of time I have made myself believe that it is related to what/when I eat etc. If you can, could you share what were the triggers for you?

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

#140
post #132
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really wish people would stop invalidating others because of their own god damn protection. I haven't eaten fast food in decades. Cutting gluten changed my life. Go on everyone, tell me how I'm a fraud.

what irks me about dismissing people's experience is that is so unscientific. The response should not be "surely they had crap diets" or "it's just placebo/it's just psychosomatic", it should be "uhm, I wonder why this is happening, let's investigate. which is the whole point of the article, after all

When people describe their diets they have enormous biases and subjective considerations.

So yes, people's experiences told by themselves are unscientific

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