I have been on keto for three months now, for me it's mostly about the mental clarity, free from the ups and downs you experience when eating a lunch high in carbs.
Can an extreme low carb diet be used as medicine?
41–50 of 176 posts
Re: Can an extreme low carb diet be used as medicine?
#42I love how we're starting to focus on our diets to prevent or cure a huge amount of diseases. You don't need drugs, expensive treatments, nothing, only a good diet. (read the comments below for an clarification for this statement) I personally can't work on a very low carb diet. Now I'm eating carbs again but NOT refined carbs. I make sure everything I eat is nutrient dense. Well, not everything, I'm not a robot but…
>You don't need drugs, expensive treatments, nothing, only a good diet. Moms on facebook keep telling me this but my physician disagree! Do you have an essential oil for this?
I realized that that statement can be misinterpreted. I'm not talking about not using drugs or going to a doctor when it's needed. I'm saying a good diet can prevent a lot of bad stuff and sometimes even reverse things like diabetes.
Re: Can an extreme low carb diet be used as medicine?
#43Before the advent of anti-seizure drugs, the ketogenic diet [1] was an effective and widespread intervention used to treat epilepsy. The downside is the discipline required to keep intake of carbohydrates below 15 grams per day, especially in children. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet
It's still used for treating e.g. West syndrome which is similar to epilepsy.
Re: Can an extreme low carb diet be used as medicine?
#44Can someone explain why ketosis is the secondary energy system in the body and not the primary?
My understanding of this is that the body will always preferentially burn glucose because excess blood sugar is highly problematic, while excess fat can just be stored without the severe health risk.
With carb intake reduced the body will naturally switch to burning fat because it is the only fuel source available.
Re: Can an extreme low carb diet be used as medicine?
#45Yes. And it has been used to cure some things you wouldn't believe. Here is the shortlist of the more serious illness that the PaleoMedicina group in Hungary have shown to effectively treat using their low-carb PKD protocol https://justmeat.co/wiki/pkd/ https://www.paleomedicina.com/en/paleolithic_ketogenic_diet_... Here are testimonies of even more people healing their serious diseases on a purely carnivore and zero…
'Paleo medicine' sounds like living a long, healthy life and dying an old man at 30.
Why? Paleolithic area humans may have had a life expectancy of 30-35 but it had nothing to do with diet, it has to do with so many dying as children (obviously not diet related), but once you passed the age of 5 you were generally going to live to your 60’s.
Re: Can an extreme low carb diet be used as medicine?
#46I did it before for weight loss, it worked amazingly, but the weight came back on just as easily. It would have to be a permanent lifestyle change, and I'm not convinced that's safe.
What makes you think that it isn't safe? I guess the other question is what makes you sure that another diet is safe?
Re: Can an extreme low carb diet be used as medicine?
#47I've been on keto for probably a full year of my life at this point, broken up every few months. I usually can't maintain it for longer than 2-3 months at a time because it really is a strict diet - but it's always been worth it once I get into the "mode".
I absolutely love it because it turns the daily roller coaster of hunger pains for me caused by carbs into a steadier, more predictable climb. I basically feel no hunger at all during the day, and it's fantastic.
The big downside, obviously: little to no carbs. As a home baker I miss making bread when on keto, but I get that energy out by making different keto treats (usually almond/coconut flour based) instead.
Re: Can an extreme low carb diet be used as medicine?
#48Before the advent of anti-seizure drugs, the ketogenic diet [1] was an effective and widespread intervention used to treat epilepsy. The downside is the discipline required to keep intake of carbohydrates below 15 grams per day, especially in children. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet
And still used in cases where drugs are not well tolerated: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002bnz This was for a child, and the parents talk about the difficulties in maintaining that diet that you mention.
Re: Can an extreme low carb diet be used as medicine?
#49It's been used to treat diabetes and seizure victims for a while so, yes. Personally I lost over 70 pounds (from 295 to 225 -- I'm 6'5") at one point using keto. My main concern is whether one who is on the diet for weight loss will become overly sensitive to carbs if/when they start eating them again causing the body to immediately store them away as far instead of burning them (and if so, how long would it take to…
I mean, would you rather be overweight and not sensitive to quickly storing even more fat through carbs, or thin/regular and more sensitive to gaining weight quickly through carbs?
The body adapted to storing carbs over a long period of time. Chances are that you need to give it at least as much to "un-adapt" from that.
Re: Can an extreme low carb diet be used as medicine?
#50Can someone explain why ketosis is the secondary energy system in the body and not the primary?
It is the primary energy system. When a woman get pregnat, weeks before giving birth, she starts to produce ketones for the baby (it doesn't matter how many sugar the mum takes). And when the baby is born, meanwhile he drinks from mum milk he is in ketosis, because more than 50% of human milk is saturated fats. So yeah, we are in ketosis until we start to eat "food" high in carbs. The body can't burn fats if insuline…
> "It is the primary energy system"
No, it's not [1]. Why do you think many organs[2] including the brain[3] that NEEDS glucose to run?
> "we are in ketosis until we start to eat "food" high in carbs"
No, that's not how that works. Infants are in a MILD ketosis and "this isn’t a function of their diet, but of the developmental period they’re in"[4]
1. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article-abstract/59/3/682S/473...
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22436/
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3900881/
4. https://www.stopbeingconfusedabouthealth.com/ketogenic-diet-...