Ketogenic diet resource website on the Internet

[Norton1]

Since I was diagnosed as having Parkinson's eight years ago, like many PwP's I did a lot of research both over the Internet and by reading books. I know from my time on this HU forum that many of you are keen to embark on the Ketogenic diet, possibly using Coconut oil or other similar food items. One website I came across which struck me as a great place to find out more about the Ketogenic diet and the author, whilst not having Parkinson's herself found the diet helped her enormously in overcoming several health issues. I have been in contact with her and found her to be extremely helpful. For those interested in finding out more, a great place to start is:

ketogenic-diet-resource.com...

[SGHALDIA]

Thank you Norton once again. You information on milks adverse effect on PD is also correct, which I have checked for my self.

Regards

[Norton1 in reply to SGHALDIA]

Thank you Sghaldia. Good to see that you still take nothing at face value and check for yourself.

Regards

Norton

[SGHALDIA in reply to Norton1]

Norton, a list of do's & don't will be helpful for PD patients.

You have the knowledge & the best person to do it. Please make a list and post.

Regards

[Norton1 in reply to SGHALDIA]

Hello Sghaldia,

I'm flattered that you consider me the best person to give a list of 'do's and dont's' in respect of the Ketogenic diet. Their are at least two PwP on this site who are far more knowledgeable than me, namely, Satwar and RoyProp. Both have written in depth about their experiences whilst following this diet. You could do no better than to search their posts first. Both write comprehensively and have answered many questions from people such as yourself. In the unlikely event that you have any questions, I feel sure they will try and help.

The document I referenced in my opening post on this thread is well worthwhile reading thoroughly and you can address any queries to the author, who is helpful.

Best wishes

Norton1 (my new username)

[PatV]

Since Adele Davis I've been reading up on nutrition, and I have to confess I don't understand a word of the ketogenic diet. Can someone rephrase in second grade language ?

[Hidden in reply to PatV]

Mark Maunder

markmaunder.com/2012/07/22/...

First a summary of the science behind the Ketogenic Diet.

Keep in mind I’m summarizing hundreds of pages of explanation and supporting data into a few paragraphs:

When you eat carbs your blood glucose level is raised and your pancreas secretes insulin. This insulin puts your muscle and fat cells into “storage mode”. Your fat cells store away the glucose as triglycerides. Insulin also prevents your fat cells from breaking down those triglycerides back into fatty acids and releasing them into your blood stream for use as energy. This is important: Insulin both causes fat absorption and prevents fat from being used as energy.

If you were to eat sugary snacks throughout the day you are keeping your insulin level high which constantly keeps your fat cells in a state of absorption and prevents the release of fat and its use as energy.

Eating fat and protein does very little to raise your insulin level.

So the bottom line here is, if you want your body to burn fat – meaning if you want your fat cells to break down triglycerides into fatty acids, release them into your blood stream and actually use them as energy – you need to keep your insulin level as low and absolutely avoid spikes in insulin.

A note on calories: Counting calories or increasing exercise output, according to the research of Taubes and many others, is a bad way to try to lose weight because what usually happens is instead of your body burning fat to make up for the deficit in calories, it simply decreases the amount of energy it expends. So you end up lethargic and still fat.

There is a lot more to this, but the science above is the rationale behind all Low GI, Low Carb and Ketogenic diets. It is why you lose weight on these diets while consuming the same number of calories.

Low Carb and Low GI diets work because they cut out carbs that cause spikes in insulin, which you now know will cause fat absorption and prevent fat burn.

The Ketogenic diet takes this one step further. It keeps your insulin level low which puts your body into fat-release-fat-burn mode, but also significantly increases the fat content in your diet and teaches your body to use fat as energy. Your body (your liver in particular) will enter a state of Ketosis and will break down fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies which will be used as energy.

During the diet you can measure how much fat your body is burning by monitoring your output of acetoacetate using Ketostix. When you enter a Ketogenic state, you will see a Ketone output of 5 to 20 mg/dL (According to “Why we get fat” by Taubes and my experience). The Ketostix I have also measure blood glucose which is useful to test for Ketoacidosis which you are not at risk for unless you are diabetic.

Note that Ketostix are used by diabetics to test whether they are entering a state known as Diabetic Ketoacidosis which is very dangerous. In this case they will see very high ketone levels accompanied by blood sugar levels of greater than 240 mg/dL. You should be seeing blood sugar levels of zero (according to your Ketostix) during your diet.

Please note that the diet outlined below is not the “Cyclical Ketogenic Diet” used by bodybuilders. It is a basic Ketogenic diet which I’ve found to be the most effective fat burning diet available. I’ve modified this diet from the classic Ketogenic diet used to treat epilepsy which recommends a 4 to 1 ratio of fat to protein. I’ve found that I can reach a state of Ketosis with a 1 to 1 ratio of fat to protein provided I keep the carbs very low.

[Norton1 in reply to Hidden]

RoyProp. I'm sure that others would agree with me that your contributions are thorough and well researched. Thank you for being you.

Regards

Norton

[Hidden in reply to Norton1]

I read and give every idea presented that claims to address my Parkinson's Disease their opportunity to convince me. I have much to lose, PD progression, if I miss some diet or medical approach and do not give them due consideration. I do not want to be "late to the party". I appreciate this site and the participants as a true research site and learning tool. I am so thankful that use of this site is free and also there is no "consultation fees" from member participants.

[Norton1 in reply to PatV]

PatV. Your honesty about needing clarification is refreshing, but i have to say that I always value your contributions. They are always straight to the point.

Regards

Norton

[PatV in reply to Norton1]

Thanks, Norton

[soup]

People with diabetes have to avoid the state of ketosis. If it is such a good thing why are they avoiding it? I don't mean this as an aggressive post, I'm confused. what damage does it do to people with Diabetes that is not happening in anybody else on a ketogenic diet?

[Norton1]

Hello Soup.

I do not see your question anyway aggressive, in fact I welcome it as so many PwP have one form of diabetes or another. We can not blindly act without first doing some research especially if we are diabetic.

I am not diabetic myself, so when you say Ketosis, do you mean keto acidosis? I don't know if you have read any of the reference I gave in my introduction, but if you open it and look down the left side you will see 'keto diabetes' which takes you to paragraphs on diabetes and a quick look there indicates that the Ketogenic diet is suitable for people with diabetes 2, but there are some cautionary words on people with diabetes type1, even so, apparently this diet can still be adopted in essence.

I believe diet is important and there are other non-Ketogenic diets that claim that they can control diabetes. As I see it, medications for both Parkinson's and diabetes can not be expected to work to their maximum if the patient undermines them by eating a processed food diet.

Thank you for your question, which I hope will stimulate many PwP to investigate further with the possibility of improving their health.

Kind regards

Norton

[satwar]

Thanks Norton,

I found some very interesting articles on protein requirements. I have been struggling to understand how much I should be eating and how often. I found some well presented information which I will use to tweak my meal plans.

[Hidden in reply to satwar]

"understand how much I should be eating"

A serving size of a deck of cards. (meat)

[Norton1 in reply to Hidden]

Hello RoyProp. Interesting analogy, but what does it represent in terms of percentage of your daily diet? Professor Colin T Campbell points to some research that found when rodents were fed 20% or more of their diet with protein! they all succumbed to cancer! yet when fed about 5% of protein none of the control animals developed cancer. Of course, I realise that it may not be the same for humans, but worth noting on something so serious.

Regards

Norton

[satwar in reply to Norton1]

Actually RoyProp's analogy may be closer to the mark than you may think. Some scientists have found that sufficient protein is best defined as an absolute amount per meal, and that expressing protein as a percentage of daily calorie intake is misleading because it is dependent on calorie intake. They also maintain that there is no relationship between protein and cancer, and that the human body has very sophisticated mechanisms for dealing with protein intake, whereas carbohydrate has only insulin to store as fat. I found the following information quite interesting:

Consuming at least 30 grams of protein at each meal is critical because it triggers the insulin-mTOR metabolic pathway for skeletal muscle protein synthesis and mitochondrial biogenesis. This increase in protein synthesis and mitochondrial proliferation then increases thermogenesis (calorie burning). In fact, the energy expenditure of muscles involved in protein synthesis is greater than the expenditure when the muscle is doing intense exercise. This point is especially important for people wanting to lose fat (but not muscle) and for the elderly to prevent sarcopenia, which is muscle loss associated with old age.

If you eat less than 30 grams of protein at each meal, there is no protein synthesis effect. The protein is then wasted as simple calories. It gets converted to glucose or fat.

[Norton1]

I'm pleased you found the website helpful Satwar, particularly as you are well read on the Ketogenic diet. I consider both you and RoyProp well able to help others on HU who want to follow this path.

Kind regards

Norton

[satwar in reply to Norton1]

Actually the article related to every diet, not just ketogenic, although the author was quite critical of carbohydrate rich diets.

[Norton1 in reply to satwar]

Hello Satwar. When I was following a Ketogenic/ Paleo diet about a year ago, I found the owner/author of the website extremely helpful. Her name is Ellen and she also writes articles for health magazines. Indeed, she still contacts me from time to time when she has some other useful information to tell me. Look at her website about the Deanna Protocol which is showing promise dealing with neurological diseases. Ellen, is clearly a writer who is dedicated to her work.

Kind regards

Norton

[satwar in reply to Norton1]

Indeed it is interesting. The same group of scientists (D'Agostino @ USF) that have done a lot of work with the ketogenic diet for US Navy Seals, are now conducting tests of the Deanna Protoco using mouse models. My understanding is that the Deanna Protocol is a ketogenic diet with lots of supplements.

The USF group are also currently running the trials on using coconut oil beverage for Alzheimer's.

[Hidden in reply to Norton1]

I ate a alrge piece of cake, and the next day i was a hot mess. So I did a week of an idea of how the ketogenic diet works. Where do I get a basic easy to understand ketogenic diet?

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

markmaunder.com/2012/07/22/...

First a summary of the science behind the Ketogenic Diet.

Keep in mind I’m summarizing hundreds of pages of explanation and supporting data into a few paragraphs:

When you eat carbs your blood glucose level is raised and your pancreas secretes insulin. This insulin puts your muscle and fat cells into “storage mode”. Your fat cells store away the glucose as triglycerides. Insulin also prevents your fat cells from breaking down those triglycerides back into fatty acids and releasing them into your blood stream for use as energy. This is important: Insulin both causes fat absorption and prevents fat from being used as energy.

If you were to eat sugary snacks throughout the day you are keeping your insulin level high which constantly keeps your fat cells in a state of absorption and prevents the release of fat and its use as energy.

Eating fat and protein does very little to raise your insulin level.

So the bottom line here is, if you want your body to burn fat – meaning if you want your fat cells to break down triglycerides into fatty acids, release them into your blood stream and actually use them as energy – you need to keep your insulin level as low and absolutely avoid spikes in insulin.

[Norton1]

Always good to read what you say Satwar; do you feel tempted to adopt the Deanna protocol or will you continue tweak what you are doing now? As you say, it requires lots of supplements and it makes me wonder just how far some PwP are prepared to go, assuming the cost will probably be great and the dedication to follow such a regime consistently, even greater!

Regards

Norton

[satwar]

I still have fine tuning of the ketogenic diet (to sustain high ketone levels throughout the day), but am pleased with the results. The Deanna Protocol is a lot of supplements and appears to be a scatter gun approach, although AAKG may be worth a try someday. At least the protocol is more publicly available now, it was hard to find a few years ago.

[Norton1]

Satwar

I've only come across the Deanner Protocol in the past week, so you are way ahead of me. To be honest Satwar I don't have sufficient drive to pursue it myself, but I shall keep an eye open for anyone else who does.

Please see my earlier post to Sghaldia where I give you a mention.

Regards

Norton1