The following is a video by Michelle the Fruit Doctor who goes into the detail of Keto risks that may not show up until it is too late. The key message is that when one follows a keto style diet one eat meat which is just as insulinic as sugar that by limiting carbs you are left in a potentially false sense of security. Michelle explains it so much better than I ever could.
Included towards the end is an instance of someone following keto, working out and sadly dying. Only the autopsy after the event showed severe athersclerosis. Remember this was an avid keto person who otherwise looked and felt very healthy.
Why on earth do you have such a problem with LCHF Andy? It is virtually identical to your own touted diet - ie., lots of green vegetables - but with meat and dairy (instead of beans and seeds) providing fat and protein. So your low-GI diet is good for you because it reduces insulin excursions, but a low-GI diet with meat 'paralyzes' your insulin response? Does not compute, I'm afraid, and more importantly it doesn't happen in real life: LCHF normalizes insulin sensitivity.
As for people dying "because of" LCHF: you're basically saying that although LCHF improves the accepted risk markers for heart disease, it nevertheless causes heart disease. If that were true, then those risk markers are clearly worthless and the NHS should stop wasting money testing them.
In any case its highly unlikely LCHF actually does worsen your heart disease risk because that's exactly what the health mafia would like to see: if it were true, the government would be shouting it from the rooftops. There would be hard clinical data from the frontlines of cardiac wards. As it is , they're just mumbling under their breath about "concerns".
The issue of intramuscular fat is far more complex than guys in the video are making out, and I don't pretend to understand all the details. However, rather like ventricular hypertrophy, it can be either a good thing or a bad thing. If you're an endurance runner you will develop IF as an adaptive mechanism: your body uses it as an adjunct to glycogen, which loses its usefulness under such conditions. If you're a blob, it happens because you're a blob, and that's bad. The critical point - that Dr Greger either doesn't know or is deliberately concealing - is that pathological IF is not a cause of insulin resistance but the result of it. Your body can only synthesize certain types of fatty acid from acetyl-CoA, with the typical endpoint of lipogenesis being palmitate (a saturated fatty acid). Ordinarily this should end up incorporated into triglycerides and stored in your fat cells, but a carb-heavy diet eventually ends up causing deposits in the liver, around the internal organs, and in muscles - it appears to be a sort of overflow mechanism. It's actually possible to guess where IF comes from by analyzing its fatty acid profile.
Dietary fat on a 'keto' diet, in contrast, is burned for energy. It has to be. Your body has no other sources of energy to use.
As for the assertion that a diabetic person on keto is "still insulin resistant but doesn't know it" ... well, uh, yes, that is the entire point. Why on earth would you want to have your diabetes symptoms out on show? To remind yourself that your HAVE diabetes? To punish yourself for being a bad person? To give the diabetic "care" industry some more limbs to amputate? Diabetes cannot be cured, but you can certainly accept that your body's insulin loop is broken, and eat fat instead of carbs. Problem solved, or at least worked around.
What do you think about patient.info/health/healthy...? I only saw it today. Maybe, you've seen it before. I was slightly staggered to see the generalisation of this link. The author/doctor, who wrote it could be a GP, not an expert nutritionist with PhD, who studied in depth. However, the author does say that info he provided was "general info".
Keto is under attack at the moment. We all see it coming. Anything, which is said to be so wonderful, often ends up trashed next.
Then this website also shows the conflicting articles, sending mixed messages.
I agree with the following:
"If you want to start a high-protein or otherwise ketogenic eating regimen, it’s best to consult your healthcare provider before doing so, and seek regular care to ensure adequate nutrition."
Well ... the patient.info page appears to have been written by a 14-year-old, and I'm pretty certain if a 14-year-old turned in an essay like that for a biology assignment, he'd get it back with a C- and a frowny face. It's so full of factual inaccuracies I don't even know where to start. The most egregious problem is that it contradicts itself. It starts by instructing the reader in detail about how bad fats are, with the ideal diet containing almost no fat at all. It then goes on to explain (correctly) that obesity actually has more to do with dietary carbs than fat and that saturated fats aren't really as problematic as was first thought. Then it goes right back to telling us to eat more carbs and less fat. Now, I'm not a highly-paid NHS consultant, but I reckon that deserves a double facepalm.
I had to check the website 'About' link to be sure I wasn't reading some sort of clickbait site, the kind that starts its articles with "You'll be shocked when you find out something something". But no, it appears it's either run by or sponsored by the NHS. I don't know what to make of that, other than to note the truism that bureaucracies eventually come to have no other purpose except to sustain their own existence. The NHS, it seems, has officially abandoned its mandate to cure people (or at least the one to Do No Harm) and is now maintaining the entire population of the UK in a state of chronic disease, kept alive with powerful drugs and expensive surgery.
As for the livestrong article (the second one) from which you quote, the author makes it clear in the first sentence she has no idea what the keto diet even is ("most commonly, ketosis occurs in people who eat low-carb, high-protein diets, which are also called ketogenic diets") and then proceeds to demolish a strawman, with some made-up stuff thrown in for good measure ("ketosis also makes you feel tired and sluggish, because as 'Medical News Today' reports, ketones aren’t the most efficient source of energy, especially for your brain.").
However her article does actually prove the truth of her conclusion: that you should consult someone who knows what they're talking about before starting an LCHF diet. Not because LCHF is harmful, but because it's been so badly distorted in the media that most people end up doing it wrong - the most common mistake being an attempt to "improve" it by doing low-carb low-fat, which inevitably means a protein-only diet. That will indeed make you feel awful and will probably put you in the ER if you reduce your carbs and fat low enough.
As for LCHF being wonderful: I don't think any of its adherents assert that it'll help you live forever. Given the catastrophic results of the Establishment diet, I find it incredible that is LCHF being trashed on the basis that it fails to completely cure heart disease, diabetes, impotence, old age, and ugliness. It is, statistically speaking, better for most people than the approved high-carb diet. That's all. It cannot mitigate the effects of a sedentary lifestyle, stress, smoking, or any of the other myriad factors known to be associated with heart disease.
I have to say that those NHS articles aren't very impressive. They should start improving the quality of nutritional articles they publish. I agree with you.
"The NHS, it seems, has officially abandoned its mandate to cure people (or at least the one to Do No Harm) and is now maintaining the entire population of the UK in a state of chronic disease, kept alive with powerful drugs and expensive surgery."
That's probably true, too. It is often said that NHS is great if you are dying, they step in no matter what cost it would take. But that's not the way things should be. It's never good at an early detection of serious illnesses. They seem to forever delay diagnosing with a name and get things sorted out at an earlier stage as if it is wrong to do so. I would say, it's systemic and your "theory" could well be right.
Interesting that Michelle is calling herself a 'Fruit Doctor' - I will have a look at this video on the weekend, when I have a bit more time - and talking of weekends - it's nearly here! I am excited!
Not sure if "interesting" is the right word. The University of Natural Health - from which she was apparently awarded her PhD - is a non-accredited institution. Using the word "Doctor" in her title is therefore misleading at best, and since she's using that qualification to sell consulting services, it might even be fraud in some jurisdictions.
I recall Gillian McKeith being censured by Advertising Standards for doing something similar; the ASA's argument was that the public assume someone calling themselves "doctor such-and-such" and dispensing quasi-medical advice is a medical doctor, or at the very least has a proper PhD from a reputable academic institution.
Hi TheAwfulToad - I didn't realise that - I think it's terrible for anyone to pass themselves off as a 'doctor' without the appropriate training and qualifications - that is potentially fraudulent, as you say.
My mum had to be careful with this. She had a PHD in Chemistry, but later went on to practice in natural therapies. She was legitimately allowed to use Dr in her title because of her PHD, but in terms of the therapies, it would have misled people, so she had to remove her title.
"The Fruit Doctor Michele Martinez is a holistic nutritionist who uses a raw and cooked plant-based vegan diet to reverse many diseases found in people today. She reversed her own endometriosis and helps clients with reversing diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, autoimmune diseases... read more, weight loss and more."
I just had to look up The University of Natural Health from whence M the FD has her PhD in woo and quackery. It's awesome. It's like Hogwarts only with more green juice and without the Quidditch. For under $10k you can become a fully qualified Naturorthopathic Doctor. Naturorthopathic seems to be a word that exists only on woo websites but let that not put you off. You can also become a HygioPhysician. HygioPhysician turns out to be a word invented and trademarked by a man named Paul Fanny. It is as nebulous and meaningless a term as Naturorthopathic, in fact, but basically also just mean Quack.
Still. Who needs actual science when you can just make it up, along with your qualifications?
Absolutely right Rignold to question UNH. Here is a thread that discusses the UNH 30bananasaday.com/forum/top... and the value of courses from it. Many of the comments are very positive, though everyone saying if you want academic recognition that is not the way to go.
Whatever I always go with science from recognised academics to come up with my conclusions. I hope you will support me in providing links to peer-reviewed research to support your claims. I know the Fruit Doctor does, and it is my checking out those links that help me decide whether her information is worth listening to.
Have you had any useful consultation with this "Fruit Dr" andy?
I wish, both with the attractive youthful and the chance to make some money. I have considered starting a youtube channel full-time. But people like bite sized vegan put in numbers like 80 hours just for one video!
They are a very passionate crowd of people. When you find something that makes you healthy without limiting food intake that is a very magic formula. Add to that "no animals were harmed in the making of every meal" and finally you are saving the planet more than anyone who buys a fully electric car and you can see the attraction.
That said "vegan cheetah" may have a fair number of subscribers but amongst the vegan fraternity he is considered well named - the cheetah bit. He has been outed for lying point blank on a large number of occasions, not least of which is his vegan ethics. Another youtuber that has vegan in their name, but not in their rhetoric is unnatural vegan. Sadly youtube rewards actions that draw more views!
On a note of stance, people may or may not like the kind of stance I take on subjects. But I do not hide behind a pretence of something I am not.
I think this report is hyping up something that in reality is not being adopted by sweden. Sweden remains focussed on more greens. See fao.org/nutrition/education... which is dated 2015, two years after your healthimpactnews link.
As per my understanding, LCHF is about consuming low carbohydrate, moderate amount of protein and rest healthy fat. It really does not matter whether they come from plant based, vegetarian or non-vegetarian sources. On many days my low carb diet( < 40 gm) is fully plant based. It is a matter of choice. I do not see any conflict between LCHF and plant based diet.
Wasn't Sweden imposing a tax on fat a few years back? They've certainly changed their tune. I wonder if Uffe Ravnskov's work had anything to do with this? The guy comes across as a bit of a crank, and I don't think his conclusion (that CVD is primarily caused by stress) is supported by evidence, but he had a lot of well-founded things to say about cholesterol and saturated fats that seem to have now gone mainstream even outside of Scandinavia.
Anyway, it's great to see this sort of thing happening.
andyswarbs : low-carb diets ARE all about greens. However you're right that the official guidelines seem to contradict (somewhat) the healthimpactnews article. I wonder how much on that page is real and how much is the FAO filling in with their own prejudices? Sadly I can't read Swedish so I can't check ...
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