1 Year Low Carb Intervention Cured 60% Of Patients From Diabetes

[Peater Piper]

Well it's really hard to say that low carb is 0% effective, because if it were, it wouldn't exist. However the entire idea of low carbing your way out of diabetes seems like a diametrically opposed protocol when you take into account various hormonal responses. Insulin is trying to lower your blood sugar, while cortisol is trying to raise your blood sugar. When you take this into account, it doesn't make logical sense to use a dietary plan that's going to chronically raise cortisol. Cirion brought up a good point too. Weight loss on a low carb diet is simply result of restricted calories. If you go from eating 350 carbs in a single day, to only eating 50 carbs in a single day, that a 1,000 calorie reduction.

Low carb in itself doesn't have to raise cortisol much (there's a lot of factors involved, like activity level and just how low carbs are really being reduced). If it's hypocaloric it certainly will, but so will a high carb diet that's hypocaloric. If you're eating below your caloric needs, your body's going to need additional energy, which is going to be its own fat stores (cortisol is really just a signal of energy deficit). Choosing which way to go will really depend on the person. Ultimately this is assuming the initial goal is to reduce excess body fat, which is a separate, contentious issue here. I know the popular opinion is to improve hormones and metabolism, resulting in weight loss without restricting calories, but this approach seems to be really hit-or-miss.

 

[Cirion]

I know the popular opinion is to improve hormones and metabolism, resulting in weight loss without restricting calories, but this approach seems to be really hit-or-miss.

It works 100% of time... but the trick is, when done right, which most haven't' been able to do (Including myself, am struggling to figure out how it works). Find me someone with high T, DHT, low estrogen/serotonin, etc... and I sincerely doubt they will be overweight, regardless of their diet. There is a distinct difference between people attempting to fix hormones and those that HAVE done so. To be sure, the people here who have achieved 1000+T levels for instance are pretty rare (haidut is one of the rare few). I am not saying this to put anyone down, just to say that this is why few people have been able to make large calorie intakes work for weight management. I do know one or two members here who have though. I guarantee though you won't get to optimal hormone levels by doing super low of anything, especially carbs. I also doubt anyone has close to optimal hormone levels if they have to track calories every day just to maintain.

 

[Peater Piper]

It works 100% of time... but the trick is, when done right, which most haven't' been able to do (Including myself, am struggling to figure out how it works). Find me someone with high T, DHT, low estrogen/serotonin, etc... and I sincerely doubt they will be overweight, regardless of their diet. There is a distinct difference between people attempting to fix hormones and those that HAVE done so. To be sure, the people here who have achieved 1000+T levels for instance are pretty rare (haidut is one of the rare few). I am not saying this to put anyone down, just to say that this is why few people have been able to make large calorie intakes work for weight management. I do know one or two members here who have though.

Maybe my wording wasn't the best, but I'm purely talking about the end result. Many people never optimize their hormones, so they never even get to the second part of losing weight. How many people have gone high carb, very low fat, while taking aspirin and niacinamide to block lipolysis, and yet blood work still showed terrible thyroid status and insulin resistance? The list goes on for other hormones. I'm aware of a few success stories, but many people seem to be spinning their wheels. In some cases, I believe hormonal status can't be optimal while carrying around an excess amount of body fat.

 

[Cirion]

Maybe my wording wasn't the best, but I'm purely talking about the end result. Many people never optimize their hormones, so they never even get to the second part of losing weight. How many people have gone high carb, very low fat, while taking aspirin and niacinamide to block lipolysis, and yet blood work still showed terrible thyroid status and insulin resistance? The list goes on for other hormones. I'm aware of a few success stories, but many people seem to be spinning their wheels. In some cases, I believe hormonal status can't be optimal while carrying around an excess amount of body fat.

Since I haven't yet cured myself, I can only speculate, but I strongly suspect it is usually either

- Some nutritional (micro or macro) deficiency
- Bad gut bacteria
- Parasites
- Mucus build up (@charlie has been championing this school of thought, it is an interesting theory, he has been doing really well by working on this aspect)

The nutritional deficiency can be the tricky one and often requires doing testing and being able to interpret testing. As we know most doctors are useless so you basically have to become your own doctor to truly find optimal health.

That said hormone status won't be truly "Optimal" when overweight, but that when hormones are "good" (sufficiently recovered), the weight will slowly come off and then hormones will then be optimal. Nathan hatch is a good example of someone who ate his way to health. Everyone told him he needed to cut calories as he weighed 300 lb when he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, well, he proved them all wrong.

The problem is that too many fall into the trap of "lose weight first, get healthy" rather than "get healthy lose weight". From my own experiences it simply isn't possible to skip the step of get healthy before losing weight. Not once you're 30+ anyway. Once I hit 30 is when calorie deficits no longer worked for me.

My point is that simply losing weight just does not optimize hormones. Excess weight is a symptom, not the cause. I am not saying excess weight is a good sign, because it's not. But it is saying you have other problems like excess stress in your life, not enough nutrients, etc. If the problem is not enough nutrients, the LAST thing someone should be doing is cutting calories. This is how its perfectly reasonable that someone 300-400 lb is "starving". Someone 400 lb who is living off of junk food absolutely can be "starving" of B vitamins, fat solubles, etc...

 

[Peater Piper]

That said hormone status won't be truly "Optimal" when overweight, but that when hormones are "good" (sufficiently recovered), the weight will slowly come off and then hormones will then be optimal. Nathan hatch is a good example of someone who ate his way to health. Everyone told him he needed to cut calories as he weighed 300 lb when he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, well, he proved them all wrong.

He did that while consuming copious amounts of both refined sugar and butter, which should be devoid of both micronutrients and screw with the randle cycle. Other people have tried a similar approach and put on massive amounts of weight. Most people simply don't have the intuition or knowledge to make this kind of thing work. We're talking about hundreds (thousands?) of variables, too many for the majority of people to deal with, which makes it almost seem like random chance that a few succeeded while most continue to struggle (I don't think it was random, but the people who succeeded seemed to have either started from a place of reasonable health, had great intuition, and/or were highly intelligent and could troubleshoot along the way). We can say that reducing weight initially isn't a great long term approach either, and some people have run into major problems after their weight loss, yet others regained their health by doing so and continue to thrive (I don't really disagree with you that weight gain is more of a symptom, yet losing weight is also a fix for some people for a number of reasons). So in either scenario, we're looking at pretty poor odds.

 

[TeaRex14]

Low carb in itself doesn't have to raise cortisol much (there's a lot of factors involved, like activity level and just how low carbs are really being reduced). If it's hypocaloric it certainly will, but so will a high carb diet that's hypocaloric. If you're eating below your caloric needs, your body's going to need additional energy, which is going to be its own fat stores (cortisol is really just a signal of energy deficit). Choosing which way to go will really depend on the person. Ultimately this is assuming the initial goal is to reduce excess body fat, which is a separate, contentious issue here. I know the popular opinion is to improve hormones and metabolism, resulting in weight loss without restricting calories, but this approach seems to be really hit-or-miss.

What do you consider low carb though? 150 grams, 100 grams, 50 grams? A healthy functioning liver needs about 100 grams of net carbohydrate everyday to fill it's glycogen. Net carbohydrate, as in not green vegetables, or anything else that's low in energy density. So if you ate about 400-600 calories of potato, rice, fruit, honey, maple syrup, sugarcane, etc. everyday you could avoid most of the cortisol response, provided once again we're dealing with a healthy liver. But most low carbers won't eat any of that, they consider low calorie veggies as carbohydrate, and this won't fill their liver glycogen. So most low carbers inevitably end up with elevated cortisol because without the liver glycogen you fail to convert T4 to T3 and you need stress metabolism to compensate for this deficiency. So what most low carbers consider a "moderate" carb diet, is what you would really need to eat. Even though technically it's still low carb, it's just the sugar phobics don't seem to think so. I prefer to not think of it in terms of weight loss, but rather improving body composition. If someone is improving their hormonal profile, while on a slight calorie surplus, they could be gaining weight and losing fat all at the same time.

 

[Runenight201]

@cinderella
@TeaRex14
The elevated blood glucose and insulin following the high fat, high carb meal is a good thing. It means stable energy between meals without or with less crashes. With an elevated or maintained blood sugar in conjunction with a slow decline and matching insulin levels I would venture to guess that the cortisol and adrenaline levels of these people were significantly lower. Meaning that they had to rely less on the adaptive hormones to function. Also, for the articles to say that the participants were whole body insulin resistant is a jump, I would venture to guess some tissues such as the CNS remain insulin sensitive while other tissues such as the muscles rely more on fatty acids; an intelligent nutrient partitioning system.

——————————————————————

In my opinion this forum is loaded with low fat dogma. Its almost a religion here, maintained by the echo chamber that are the community members. To be fair though, i once believed in/followed the paradigm, of course to my own physical detriment. Time after time i see people recommending others to lower thier fat when theyre not feeling well or they keep having adrenaline rushes or anxiety/ panic attacks. I think this advice is questionable and I think that many issues on thie forum are a product of eating too low fat. Especially in the context of people gaining massive amounts of weight, developing gut issues and eating large quantities of sugar/ carbs every hour just to avoid getting a stress reaction. If you go to fruitarian forums, you will see that many people require endless amounts of fruit and sugar every hour to avoid getting crashes. They describe being hungry all the time. I think this is due to the lack of fat in thier diet leading to essentially roller coaster blood sugar levels. I believe people on this forum are experiencing the same issues. For the weight gain, i would say it most likely comes down to bacterial issues in the intestine from ingesting too many carbs in the absence of fats and hormonal issues from the dairy. I highly doubt the validity of the calories in/ calories out model and would be so bold as to say most weight issues are hormonal/ inflammatory in nature. This is especially apparent to me considering that people on this forum tend to gain weight specifically around the belly with rare reports of excess whole body subcutaneous fat gain. Dairy hormones and gut issues from excessive carbs in the absence of fat/ types of carbs (starch) consumed seem to be easy targets as causes in my mind. As for the gut issues specifically, fat is a stimulator of bile and the intestine. The bile and the fatty acids both protect from endotoxin and function as antiseptics. They also both stimulate peristalsis, so if anyone is having constipation here, I’d recommend trying to increase your consumption of long chain fatty acids. This mirrors peoples reports of fixing constipation with bile acids on this forum.

Furthermore, I’ve put this out multiple times on this forum; almost all large mammals eat about 40-50% of thier calories from fat. This is from whales to the great apes. I dont think humans would be any different, except for maybe an increase in carbs by a small percentage due to our increased brain function. Many people discuss how muscular chimps/ gorillas are, yet they have a low protein diet. I dont think it has as much to do with the protein content as it does the fat content. Chimps/ gorillas diets are mostly fat due to fermentation of fibers in the colon to short chain fatty acids by bacteria which are then processed by the chimps/ gorillas liver if I’m not mistaken to longer chain fats. These fats serve to increase anabolic hormones, provide fuel for the musculature and spare sugars for the CNS. I think the large musculature is mainly a hormonal component determined by fat intake as opposed to a protein component, as long a certain threshold of protein is eaten. If you would like proof of this take a look at bodybuilders/ fitness enthusiasts using trenbolone or any other anabolic androgen/ steroid, muscularity is drastically increased regardless of dietary intake for many people and especially in people in which protein is adequate. Again I think the hormonal component is the most important for weight/ muscularity. This component, in my experience is largely dependent on adequate fat and carb intake after a threshold of protein is met and subsequently hormone/ gut health. So for young men on this forum struggling with thier androgen levels (another issue I see here alot in conjunction with the aformentioned issues above), which thier seems to be quite a few of, as opposed to taking exogenous hormones, perhaps increasing fat to appropriate levels to allow for adequate steroid production would be a better first option.

——————————————————————

@Cirion
I dont think this starch issue has much to do with glucose handling, that seems to be secondary at most. I think its almost entirely an issue of bacterial growth in the intestine which starch seems to reliably induce. Some ethnicities of human seem to do better than others at handling starch but in the long run it seems the outcome is pot bellies in old age.

————————————————————————

EDIT: I’d like to stipulate I’m not in favor of low carb or low protein. I’m in favor of adequate fat, adequate protein, adequate carb. I myself consme 300g of sugar a day from fruit/ juice, 120-140g of protein a day from
Animal sources (seafood and ruminants) and 160-200g of a fat a day from beef tallow and refined coconut oil.

You’re spot on. I’ve essentially came to this conclusion as well and for the past couple days have consumed a diet almost identical to yours and have seen a myriad of issues beginning to resolve. My bloat is at an all time low and I feel so much lighter than ever before. I know this diet will get me lean while maintaining very positive energy states. For anyone struggling here, I think the best solution is to go fatty meat and tolerated fruits/fruit juices/sugar/vegetables.

Starches and dairy just aren’t necessary. In healthy people they may work, but many here aren’t healthy, so do the basic safe diet and then expand as needed.

 

[Cirion]

I wonder if fructose stimulates energy production too much? Sounds great with someone with hypothyroid, but someone hypothyroid typically won't have the nutrients to front a higher metabolism, causing other issues down the line. High dose fructose then would be akin to too much caffeine or aspirin in terms of stimulation.

But then, starch has its own problems that we all know of...

I know for a fact I don't do well with fruits with a higher than 1:1 fructose:glucose ratio. My temperature actually tanks if I use apples or pears or other high fructose fruits as my staple fruits.

FWIW, one guy that I had as a coach some time back was very anti-sugar but very pro-carbs. He is now quite healthy and lean without much effort. I remember telling him about RP and he thought I was crazy when I started talking about sugar.

Starting to have doubts about sugar honestly. It just doesn't seem to be bringing me the health I want.

I believe Chris MJ said that you need a lot of cholesterol to metabolize the vast amount of fructose and SFA's that would be consumed on a RP style diet. So maybe it's just a cholesterol deficiency?

 

[Kartoffel]

@cinderella
@TeaRex14
The elevated blood glucose and insulin following the high fat, high carb meal is a good thing. It means stable energy between meals without or with less crashes. With an elevated or maintained blood sugar in conjunction with a slow decline and matching insulin levels I would venture to guess that the cortisol and adrenaline levels of these people were significantly lower. Meaning that they had to rely less on the adaptive hormones to function. Also, for the articles to say that the participants were whole body insulin resistant is a jump, I would venture to guess some tissues such as the CNS remain insulin sensitive while other tissues such as the muscles rely more on fatty acids; an intelligent nutrient partitioning system.

——————————————————————

In my opinion this forum is loaded with low fat dogma. Its almost a religion here, maintained by the echo chamber that are the community members. To be fair though, i once believed in/followed the paradigm, of course to my own physical detriment. Time after time i see people recommending others to lower thier fat when theyre not feeling well or they keep having adrenaline rushes or anxiety/ panic attacks. I think this advice is questionable and I think that many issues on thie forum are a product of eating too low fat. Especially in the context of people gaining massive amounts of weight, developing gut issues and eating large quantities of sugar/ carbs every hour just to avoid getting a stress reaction. If you go to fruitarian forums, you will see that many people require endless amounts of fruit and sugar every hour to avoid getting crashes. They describe being hungry all the time. I think this is due to the lack of fat in thier diet leading to essentially roller coaster blood sugar levels. I believe people on this forum are experiencing the same issues. For the weight gain, i would say it most likely comes down to bacterial issues in the intestine from ingesting too many carbs in the absence of fats and hormonal issues from the dairy. I highly doubt the validity of the calories in/ calories out model and would be so bold as to say most weight issues are hormonal/ inflammatory in nature. This is especially apparent to me considering that people on this forum tend to gain weight specifically around the belly with rare reports of excess whole body subcutaneous fat gain. Dairy hormones and gut issues from excessive carbs in the absence of fat/ types of carbs (starch) consumed seem to be easy targets as causes in my mind. As for the gut issues specifically, fat is a stimulator of bile and the intestine. The bile and the fatty acids both protect from endotoxin and function as antiseptics. They also both stimulate peristalsis, so if anyone is having constipation here, I’d recommend trying to increase your consumption of long chain fatty acids. This mirrors peoples reports of fixing constipation with bile acids on this forum.

Furthermore, I’ve put this out multiple times on this forum; almost all large mammals eat about 40-50% of thier calories from fat. This is from whales to the great apes. I dont think humans would be any different, except for maybe an increase in carbs by a small percentage due to our increased brain function. Many people discuss how muscular chimps/ gorillas are, yet they have a low protein diet. I dont think it has as much to do with the protein content as it does the fat content. Chimps/ gorillas diets are mostly fat due to fermentation of fibers in the colon to short chain fatty acids by bacteria which are then processed by the chimps/ gorillas liver if I’m not mistaken to longer chain fats. These fats serve to increase anabolic hormones, provide fuel for the musculature and spare sugars for the CNS. I think the large musculature is mainly a hormonal component determined by fat intake as opposed to a protein component, as long a certain threshold of protein is eaten. If you would like proof of this take a look at bodybuilders/ fitness enthusiasts using trenbolone or any other anabolic androgen/ steroid, muscularity is drastically increased regardless of dietary intake for many people and especially in people in which protein is adequate. Again I think the hormonal component is the most important for weight/ muscularity. This component, in my experience is largely dependent on adequate fat and carb intake after a threshold of protein is met and subsequently hormone/ gut health. So for young men on this forum struggling with thier androgen levels (another issue I see here alot in conjunction with the aformentioned issues above), which thier seems to be quite a few of, as opposed to taking exogenous hormones, perhaps increasing fat to appropriate levels to allow for adequate steroid production would be a better first option.

——————————————————————

@Cirion
I dont think this starch issue has much to do with glucose handling, that seems to be secondary at most. I think its almost entirely an issue of bacterial growth in the intestine which starch seems to reliably induce. Some ethnicities of human seem to do better than others at handling starch but in the long run it seems the outcome is pot bellies in old age.

————————————————————————

EDIT: I’d like to stipulate I’m not in favor of low carb or low protein. I’m in favor of adequate fat, adequate protein, adequate carb. I myself consme 300g of sugar a day from fruit/ juice, 120-140g of protein a day from
Animal sources (seafood and ruminants) and 160-200g of a fat a day from beef tallow and refined coconut oil.

You know, I completely agree with your view on fat, and think that higher fat intake (at least 30%) is probably better for most people, especially if they are stressed and undernourished. However, your claim about mammals in general and their fat intake seems a bit far fetched. Lots of them eat a very low-fat diet, and saying that they convert a lot of the plant material into short-chain fatty acids is not really a valid argument for a high-fat diet. Otherwise, all vegetarians and vegans should be just as healthy and muscular as those apes. I know some people that probably eat as much raw leafy vegetables as a gorilla, but almost all of them look frail and constantly freeze. We don't have the same digestive system as our close relatives, and for a lot of people who start with a damaged digestive system and bacterial issues, such a diet would probably be very bad and not have the same effect as eating the fat directly.

 

[ecstatichamster]

Ifbimk

Low carb in itself doesn't have to raise cortisol much (there's a lot of factors involved, like activity level and just how low carbs are really being reduced). If it's hypocaloric it certainly will, but so will a high carb diet that's hypocaloric.

I think this is incorrect.

If you are low carb, your body will secrete adrenalin and cortisol and that will tap into gluconeogenesis that will eat up protein stores. I think all low carb diets are high cortisol.

 

[Kartoffel]

I believe Chris MJ said that you need a lot of cholesterol to metabolize the vast amount of fructose and SFA's that would be consumed on a RP style diet. So maybe it's just a cholesterol deficiency?

Fructose very reliably increases cholesterol levels, and saturated fat tends to do the same.

 

[Braveheart]

@cinderella
@TeaRex14
The elevated blood glucose and insulin following the high fat, high carb meal is a good thing. It means stable energy between meals without or with less crashes. With an elevated or maintained blood sugar in conjunction with a slow decline and matching insulin levels I would venture to guess that the cortisol and adrenaline levels of these people were significantly lower. Meaning that they had to rely less on the adaptive hormones to function. Also, for the articles to say that the participants were whole body insulin resistant is a jump, I would venture to guess some tissues such as the CNS remain insulin sensitive while other tissues such as the muscles rely more on fatty acids; an intelligent nutrient partitioning system.

——————————————————————

In my opinion this forum is loaded with low fat dogma. Its almost a religion here, maintained by the echo chamber that are the community members. To be fair though, i once believed in/followed the paradigm, of course to my own physical detriment. Time after time i see people recommending others to lower thier fat when theyre not feeling well or they keep having adrenaline rushes or anxiety/ panic attacks. I think this advice is questionable and I think that many issues on thie forum are a product of eating too low fat. Especially in the context of people gaining massive amounts of weight, developing gut issues and eating large quantities of sugar/ carbs every hour just to avoid getting a stress reaction. If you go to fruitarian forums, you will see that many people require endless amounts of fruit and sugar every hour to avoid getting crashes. They describe being hungry all the time. I think this is due to the lack of fat in thier diet leading to essentially roller coaster blood sugar levels. I believe people on this forum are experiencing the same issues. For the weight gain, i would say it most likely comes down to bacterial issues in the intestine from ingesting too many carbs in the absence of fats and hormonal issues from the dairy. I highly doubt the validity of the calories in/ calories out model and would be so bold as to say most weight issues are hormonal/ inflammatory in nature. This is especially apparent to me considering that people on this forum tend to gain weight specifically around the belly with rare reports of excess whole body subcutaneous fat gain. Dairy hormones and gut issues from excessive carbs in the absence of fat/ types of carbs (starch) consumed seem to be easy targets as causes in my mind. As for the gut issues specifically, fat is a stimulator of bile and the intestine. The bile and the fatty acids both protect from endotoxin and function as antiseptics. They also both stimulate peristalsis, so if anyone is having constipation here, I’d recommend trying to increase your consumption of long chain fatty acids. This mirrors peoples reports of fixing constipation with bile acids on this forum.

Furthermore, I’ve put this out multiple times on this forum; almost all large mammals eat about 40-50% of thier calories from fat. This is from whales to the great apes. I dont think humans would be any different, except for maybe an increase in carbs by a small percentage due to our increased brain function. Many people discuss how muscular chimps/ gorillas are, yet they have a low protein diet. I dont think it has as much to do with the protein content as it does the fat content. Chimps/ gorillas diets are mostly fat due to fermentation of fibers in the colon to short chain fatty acids by bacteria which are then processed by the chimps/ gorillas liver if I’m not mistaken to longer chain fats. These fats serve to increase anabolic hormones, provide fuel for the musculature and spare sugars for the CNS. I think the large musculature is mainly a hormonal component determined by fat intake as opposed to a protein component, as long a certain threshold of protein is eaten. If you would like proof of this take a look at bodybuilders/ fitness enthusiasts using trenbolone or any other anabolic androgen/ steroid, muscularity is drastically increased regardless of dietary intake for many people and especially in people in which protein is adequate. Again I think the hormonal component is the most important for weight/ muscularity. This component, in my experience is largely dependent on adequate fat and carb intake after a threshold of protein is met and subsequently hormone/ gut health. So for young men on this forum struggling with thier androgen levels (another issue I see here alot in conjunction with the aformentioned issues above), which thier seems to be quite a few of, as opposed to taking exogenous hormones, perhaps increasing fat to appropriate levels to allow for adequate steroid production would be a better first option.

——————————————————————

@Cirion
I dont think this starch issue has much to do with glucose handling, that seems to be secondary at most. I think its almost entirely an issue of bacterial growth in the intestine which starch seems to reliably induce. Some ethnicities of human seem to do better than others at handling starch but in the long run it seems the outcome is pot bellies in old age.

————————————————————————

EDIT: I’d like to stipulate I’m not in favor of low carb or low protein. I’m in favor of adequate fat, adequate protein, adequate carb. I myself consme 300g of sugar a day from fruit/ juice, 120-140g of protein a day from
Animal sources (seafood and ruminants) and 160-200g of a fat a day from beef tallow and refined coconut oil.

 

[haidut]

I’m in favor of adequate fat, adequate protein, adequate carb

I second that. In one interview somebody asked Peat about "what is the ideal macronutrient ratio" and he said something along the lines of "this is now currently known but probably about equal as percentage of calories". Personally, 33% fat does not sit very well with me but below 10% also does not feel right. I feel best on about 20% but everybody is different and I think Peat mentioned the low fat in relation to people trying to lose excess body weight. Given that many hypo people struggle with excess weight, it naturally skews the opinion of the forum in favor of low(er) fat diets but that does not mean it will be ideal for everyone. In fact, even for the same person different diets will probably be optimal depending on season, health, age, lifestyle, etc and this will keep changing as they move through life.

 

[Peater Piper]

If you are low carb, your body will secrete adrenalin and cortisol and that will tap into gluconeogenesis that will eat up protein stores. I think all low carb diets are high cortisol.

It doesn't have to, at least not in the first six weeks. It would be nice to have more info, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of studies looking at ketosis and cortisol. I'm skeptical of keto, or even low carb without ketosis, over the course of years, but as a short term intervention I think it may be a useful tool for some people.

Body composition and hormonal responses to a carbohydrate-restricted diet. - PubMed - NCBI

The few studies that have examined body composition after a carbohydrate-restricted diet have reported enhanced fat loss and preservation of lean body mass in obese individuals. The role of hormones in mediating this response is unclear. We examined the effects of a 6-week carbohydrate-restricted diet on total and regional body composition and the relationships with fasting hormone concentrations. Twelve healthy normal-weight men switched from their habitual diet (48% carbohydrate) to a carbohydrate-restricted diet (8% carbohydrate) for 6 weeks and 8 men served as controls, consuming their normal diet. Subjects were encouraged to consume adequate dietary energy to maintain body mass during the intervention. Total and regional body composition and fasting blood samples were assessed at weeks 0, 3, and 6 of the experimental period. Fat mass was significantly (P <or=.05) decreased (-3.4 kg) and lean body mass significantly increased (+1.1 kg) at week 6. There was a significant decrease in serum insulin (-34%), and an increase in total thyroxine (T(4)) (+11%) and the free T(4) index (+13%). Approximately 70% of the variability in fat loss on the carbohydrate-restricted diet was accounted for by the decrease in serum insulin concentrations. There were no significant changes in glucagon, total or free testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), cortisol, or triiodothyronine (T(3)) uptake, nor were there significant changes in body composition or hormones in the control group. Thus, we conclude that a carbohydrate-restricted diet resulted in a significant reduction in fat mass and a concomitant increase in lean body mass in normal-weight men, which may be partially mediated by the reduction in circulating insulin concentrations.

 

[tara]

I think of diabetes as difficulty metabolising carbohydrates. A cure would be restoring ability to metabolise carbohydrates effectively for energy.

The primary issue of diabetes is an inability of the cell to oxidize sugar. The Blood sugar content and hba1c are a feature of this issue, not the cause. The free fatty acids are a feature of this issue not neccesarily the cause. The high insulin levels are a feature of this issue not the cause. Lab values are often associative at best and depend on context. The real cause, atleast from my point of view lies at the cellular level with the oxidation of the sugar.
...
Besides the true test of curing diabetes is having a diabetic eat carbohydrates and be able to consistently maintain thier blood sugar without drugs and insulin. If theyre not doing that, theyre managing thier symptoms at best.

+1

 

[tara]

I second that. In one interview somebody asked Peat about "what is the ideal macronutrient ratio" and he said something along the lines of "this is now currently known but probably about equal as percentage of calories". Personally, 33% fat does not sit very well with me but below 10% also does not feel right. I feel best on about 20% but everybody is different and I think Peat mentioned the low fat in relation to people trying to lose excess body weight. Given that many hypo people struggle with excess weight, it naturally skews the opinion of the forum in favor of low(er) fat diets but that does not mean it will be ideal for everyone. In fact, even for the same person different diets will probably be optimal depending on season, health, age, lifestyle, etc and this will keep changing as they move through life.

+1

 

[TeaRex14]

"A certain small amount of fat helps to stimulate the intestine and activate absorption of the oily vitamins - vitamins K, D, A & E. And about 30 or 40 years ago, I was looking at the association of various fats with the cancer, spontaneous cancer incidence and I saw that coconut oil had the lowest of the natural oils, but someone found that hydrogenated coconut oil containing zero polyunsaturated or 'essential' acids, had the lowest incidence of spontaneous cancer of all, essentially like a completely fat-free diet. And so, the fat... even 2 or 3% of PUFA in butter and coconut oil, the fact that that accumulates - because our muscles, for example, quickly oxidize the saturated fats and preferentially we store the more water soluble, polyunsaturated fats - and so over time even eating a moderate amount of butter and coconut oil, our tissues will become increasingly saturated with the polyunsaturated fats. And the fat cells, which store little droplets of fat, they for their own energy prefer - like the muscles - they prefer to oxidize the safe, saturated fats. So, our fat tissues with age become more and more concentrated with a relatively pure polyunsaturated store of fat. And, under stress, fat is released and especially the polyunsaturated, which is more accessible to the stress activation. So, with age, stress becomes more harmful, because you've stored up more of the PUFA. So, since we can make all of the saturated fats, palmitate, stearate and we can desaturate stearic acid to make oleic acid and our own series of polyunsaturateds, I think it's best to get as much sugar and starch in your diet, preferably sugars from fruit and milk, and minimise the exposure to the unstable and n-6 and n-3 fatty acids." - Ray Peat

I think Peat makes it pretty clear his personal preference is a low fat, or a low(er) fat diet. The question becomes how much fat does the average person need to dilute PUFA liberation. 10-20% is probably the sweet spot for most people, provided they stick to coconut oil, butter, and ruminant fat.

 

[ecstatichamster]

It doesn't have to, at least not in the first six weeks. It would be nice to have more info, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of studies looking at ketosis and cortisol. I'm skeptical of keto, or even low carb without ketosis, over the course of years, but as a short term intervention I think it may be a useful tool for some people.

Body composition and hormonal responses to a carbohydrate-restricted diet. - PubMed - NCBI

I’ve been monitoring my temperatures and heart rate against my eating and drinking very carefully. I notice very quick and sharp plummets in my body temperature that can only coincide with high cortisol and adrenaline — for instance, having too much coffee without realizing that I haven’t eaten enough, or eating eggs or other protein without enough sugar.

There are wide swings in stress and I think it’s too easy to get consistently hypoglycemic and adrenaline and cortisol have to kick in, they must. And they do.

I’m becoming more careful about coffee and eating and making sure I don’t go hypoglycemic. I’m not diabetic either.

 

[CLASH]

@Kartoffel
Perhaps I came off a bit unclear. I’m not in favor of eating similar diets to the apes. I too see what the fruitarian and vegans often look like and Read about thier symptoms. What I was saying was macro nutrient percentages across large species of mammals are very similar. Large predators like lions, wolves; ruminants such as cows, sheep, goats; whales, elephants, giraffes, deer, moose etc. all generally have higher fat diets. How they get the fat content is what differs, yet the fat content remains around the same, as does the protein and carb content. In the fermenting animals, both foregut and hindgut some substrate, whether plants or, in the case of whales crustacean exoskeleton, are fermented to produce short chain fatty acids that go to liver of the animal and are adjusted from there. In the large carnivores the fatty portions of the carcass in conjunction with the organ meats are the priority for food. The muscle meat is secondary at best. As for protein and carbs it may be unclear as to how they are similar between the carnivore and the fermenter but if you consider that the carnivore derives large portions of its sugars from gluconeogenesis i.e. converting the consumed protein to sugars you’ll see that the carnivores are meeting thier carb needs just with a different strategy. The fermenters obviously meet thier carb and protein needs from the plant matter they consume. Since both groups meet thier needs differently thier GI tracts and livers (along with other organs) are arranged to handle thier specific diet. The carnivores have an acidic stomach with a larger small intestine and a miniscule colon. The fermenters either have a large foregut (expanded stomach to some extent) or a large hindgut (expanded colon) and thier stomachs are often much more alkaline. Something to keep in mind tho, is atleast from what I can see, increasing brain size leads to increased carb requirements. As the great apes increase in brain size, they have an increase in both animal product consumption and carbohydrate content of the diet (chimps eat more fruit than gorillas if i’m not mistaken).

So as to your point about humans, your absolutely correct, I dont think our diet should be that similar to the apes. We use a different dietary strategy than the apes to meet our need. If you look at our gi tracts we have a much larger small intestine with a much smaller colon indicating a greater absorptive capacity as opposed to a fermentative capacity (for absorption of sugars and fats). We also have a very acidic stomach. Thus, our strategy for obtaining these fatty acids would most likely have to come exogenously from our diet. Also, overall based on Our GI tracts and ancestry it would seem the ideal diet would be a fruit and meat (this includes seafood) based diet. Interestingly, the two biggest dietary camps right now I see are the fruitarians and keto people. They both are eating one side of the human diet and finding benefits. I think if they combined fruitarianism with keto, they’d find that they would mitigate the issues from either side. The fats from keto would keep the small intestine clean, keep the intestines moving, supply substrate for the steroid hormones, protect the liver, nourish the skin, provide energy for the musculature (fruitarians musculature is usually non-existent). The protein from the keto would also help the liver and supply the neccesary amino acids and maintain lean mass as well other tissues and organs. Meanwhile, the fruit sugar and nutrients would stave off the stress hormones from keto, fill muscle glycogen, support the thyroid and also keep the colon free of pathogenic bacteria. The fruit polyphenols and flavanoids have protecive effects over the liver and the colon/ microbiota. The fibers from some fruits and the juices would be the least damaging as long as there was no allergy or intolerance (i still feel better with lower fiber). Also, the fruit sugars are easily absorbed by the small intestine. With all this, humans essentially seem to be carnivorous apes. Our Gi tracts reflect this, as does our supposed ancestry and the case reports from either side of the dietary spectrum.

As a side note I do think that yams/ tubers/roots, greens and dairy exist in a grey area for us. It seems some humans have adapted to dairy or starchy yams/ tubers better than others.

 

[Mauritio]

I think of diabetes as difficulty metabolising carbohydrates. A cure would be restoring ability to metabolise carbohydrates effectively for energy.

+1

Isnt that exactly what IdeaLabs Pyrucet does?!