Fasting? Ketones?

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I just want someone to reply to this... I want to get a discussion going.
Fasting and Ketosis is becoming very popular and if it is harmful then it should be talked about... all this did was talk about benefits and brain health, not actual problems.

 
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Most of what you see in pop-health and alt-health about ketones and fasting is just marketing to sell products and services like personal coaching because people like to hear that high fat eating is good or healthy. People like to hear a lot of things but that doesn't mean that what they're hearing is healthy, if the context is health. Fat sounds good to people and so do carbs but it's much easier to trash "carbs" to the layperson than it is to trash fat. There is a cultural disdain for sugar, "starch" and "carbs" when comes to their effect on health. Everyone knows that they're "the devil" and so "bad" for you. Though there are some coaches and professionals that work with peoples diets who do recommend "complex" carbohydrates to their clients as the "good" carbs. Complex carbohydrate is just another word for starch but because starch is such a dirty word, they use the former.

Intermittent fasting is not really fasting. It's just delaying the time in which you ingest your calories without getting into ketosis. It takes about 3 days of no food or nutrients at all to hit the true fasting state. Once that happens, you're in ketosis, though it is on a scale of some ketones to lots of ketones, depending on the person and amount of time. So if you're only eating from 5-9pm every day, you're never getting into ketosis therefore you're not truly fasting. People call it "fasting" by putting the word "intermittent" in front of it but the word "fasting" does not need a modifier. Once you place a modifier in front of it, you've changed the definition. Like "social justice." "Justice" doesn't need a modifer. So if Tim Ferris is not eating anything at all for 72 hours at a time, then he's barely getting into ketosis and is just burning off stored glycogen and some free fatty acids. Some people do get into ketosis after 1 day and some people take longer than 3 days. This guy claims he was producing ketones after just one day.

The ketogenic diet was originally developed to mimic that state, the fasting state, after the gov't shut down various fasting sanatoriums many moons ago. The ketogenic diet is easy to market because people like those foods. There's nothing wrong with liking those foods, people are free to do as they wish. But if you're trying to get at what the optimal diet for daily health and longevity is then people just liking a food isn't enough to give a certain way of eating a pass. People like donuts and hot dogs too. Doesn't mean that donuts and hot dogs are health promoting. The only evidence I've seen of the ketogenic diet being good is on epileptic children. Other than that, there's no reason to follow it. It's a high fat and high protein diet. A lot of that protein is going to be converted into sugar which is a very acidic process. It is likely to stress the kidneys and increase the chances of gallstones, kidney stones and probably many other things. Even if SFA doesn't cause heart disease, PUFA does and you're still getting lots of PUFA that's alongside your SFA on a keto diet, not to mention all the PUFA in the sardines and other fish that keto people eat. Even if you don't eat any fish on your keto diet, a diet that is that high in fat is going to be high in unsaturated fat naturally.

Ketones can never be the "better" fuel because they can never fully replace glucose. We are glucose burning machines and there's no way around it, even when you're in full ketosis because even then you still need glucose. Ketones are a backup fuel and they can't fuel certain cells that only glucose can such as the brain which still requires some glucose while in a ketoic state, the red blood cells and the renal medulla which is an important part of the kidneys. So no matter how deep you are in ketosis, those tissues and red blood cells will need glucose no matter what. The true purpose of ketones is to provide energy to the brain, heart and muscles while in a ketotic state from true fasting, whether voluntary for whatever reason or involuntary as in a famine. Your brain is a glucose monster, usually needing around 120 grams of sugar per day. But it is a bi-fuel organ that can use ketones if it has to. They are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier unlike free fatty acids that the muscles can use. Your brain can use ketones if you force it to, but that doesn't mean that it prefers to and is happy about it.

Imagine that you go on a fishing trip and you get stranded at sea for days or even weeks, or you get stranded in the wild, or there is an apocalypse. You run out of food and water so you're forced to fast. Depending on the weather, with no fresh water you would only live about 7 days before you died from dehydration. Thats called "dry fasting" and the only people who do that are weird hippies who lie about what they're really doing because we can't go for that long without water.

So you're stranded. If you attempt to drink some seawater then you'll die much quicker. But if it rains and you collect a good amount of rain water which is naturally distilled pure water, you'll use ketones as your main fuel to get you through if you survive. Most people have enough fat stores on them that they can go for 2 months or longer without food and with water. If you lost too much of your electrolytes, even though you still have plenty of fat, that can cause your heart to not beat properly but the body generally has a lot of stores of the electrolytes. You will use some of your protein tissue for glucose as well as your fat stores for ketones but the shorter you fast, the more protein you use for glucose, the longer you fast, the less protein you use for glucose and the more fat you use for ketones. But remember that even then there's still always a need for some amount of glucose. So that is what ketone bodies true purpose is. To convert your body fat into energy for your brain and heart while you hope that the famine ends. Fasting and ketones have been misconstrued and redefined for marketing purposes.

People use medically-supervised water-only fasting as a temporary tool for health. It's not a state that you stay in for life. At some point, you have to go back to eating, storing and burning glucose, also known as sugar, our most precious molecule.

Ray Peat on the stress of ketogenic diets

Possibly the best Peat clip ever:



Ray Peat on the effects of diet devoid of sugar and general diet advice.



I say that because sugar is so misunderstood.
 
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A lot of the studies I have seen about ketones being good for you seem to be right. I think that ketones are an "optimal" source of energy for certain things. They burn very efficiently and this is likely why they are found in the brains of new born babies. It is however important to realize the environment that ketones need in order for production. It requires high amounts of cortisol and adrenalin, and glycogen depletion. Although glycogen depletion has been said to have some benefits, long derations of it cannot be good for health. So although ketones aren't bad for you, the environment that they are produced in is.

People say all the time that sugar is bad for you. They keep bringing up this argument about alcohol and how since it shuts down FFA production and is still bad for you then sugar must be bad for you. I obviously bring acetaldehyde, and alcohol metabolism which gets them thinking. However what really shuts them up and gets them thinking is when I bring up the liver storing carbs in the form of glycogen. I don't know what it is about this but it is hilarious!

I think that in their mind the liver is supposed to clear up toxins like acetaldehyde, and so when you say that the liver stores something that is in their mind a toxin (carbs) it completely defeats their logic. Its like they don't want to believe that carbs are the preferred source of a healthy metabolism. Oh well, I got a good laugh about that one, because its just so logical! But they wont get it through their heads!
 

managing

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Joined
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Messages
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Most of what you see in pop-health and alt-health about ketones and fasting is just marketing to sell products and services like personal coaching because people like to hear that high fat eating is good or healthy. People like to hear a lot of things but that doesn't mean that what they're hearing is healthy, if the context is health. Fat sounds good to people and so do carbs but it's much easier to trash "carbs" to the layperson than it is to trash fat. There is a cultural disdain for sugar, "starch" and "carbs" when comes to their effect on health. Everyone knows that they're "the devil" and so "bad" for you. Though there are some coaches and professionals that work with peoples diets who do recommend "complex" carbohydrates to their clients as the "good" carbs. Complex carbohydrate is just another word for starch but because starch is such a dirty word, they use the former.

Intermittent fasting is not really fasting. It's just delaying the time in which you ingest your calories without getting into ketosis. It takes about 3 days of no food or nutrients at all to hit the true fasting state. Once that happens, you're in ketosis, though it is on a scale of some ketones to lots of ketones, depending on the person and amount of time. So if you're only eating from 5-9pm every day, you're never getting into ketosis therefore you're not truly fasting. People call it "fasting" by putting the word "intermittent" in front of it but the word "fasting" does not need a modifier. Once you place a modifier in front of it, you've changed the definition. Like "social justice." "Justice" doesn't need a modifer. So if Tim Ferris is not eating anything at all for 72 hours at a time, then he's barely getting into ketosis and is just burning off stored glycogen and some free fatty acids. Some people do get into ketosis after 1 day and some people take longer than 3 days. This guy claims he was producing ketones after just one day.

The ketogenic diet was originally developed to mimic that state, the fasting state, after the gov't shut down various fasting sanatoriums many moons ago. The ketogenic diet is easy to market because people like those foods. There's nothing wrong with liking those foods, people are free to do as they wish. But if you're trying to get at what the optimal diet for daily health and longevity is then people just liking a food isn't enough to give a certain way of eating a pass. People like donuts and hot dogs too. Doesn't mean that donuts and hot dogs are health promoting. The only evidence I've seen of the ketogenic diet being good is on epileptic children. Other than that, there's no reason to follow it. It's a high fat and high protein diet. A lot of that protein is going to be converted into sugar which is a very acidic process. It is likely to stress the kidneys and increase the chances of gallstones, kidney stones and probably many other things. Even if SFA doesn't cause heart disease, PUFA does and you're still getting lots of PUFA that's alongside your SFA on a keto diet, not to mention all the PUFA in the sardines and other fish that keto people eat. Even if you don't eat any fish on your keto diet, a diet that is that high in fat is going to be high in unsaturated fat naturally.

Ketones can never be the "better" fuel because they can never fully replace glucose. We are glucose burning machines and there's no way around it, even when you're in full ketosis because even then you still need glucose. Ketones are a backup fuel and they can't fuel certain cells that only glucose can such as the brain which still requires some glucose while in a ketoic state, the red blood cells and the renal medulla which is an important part of the kidneys. So no matter how deep you are in ketosis, those tissues and red blood cells will need glucose no matter what. The true purpose of ketones is to provide energy to the brain, heart and muscles while in a ketotic state from true fasting, whether voluntary for whatever reason or involuntary as in a famine. Your brain is a glucose monster, usually needing around 120 grams of sugar per day. But it is a bi-fuel organ that can use ketones if it has to. They are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier unlike free fatty acids that the muscles can use. Your brain can use ketones if you force it to, but that doesn't mean that it prefers to and is happy about it.

Imagine that you go on a fishing trip and you get stranded at sea for days or even weeks, or you get stranded in the wild, or there is an apocalypse. You run out of food and water so you're forced to fast. Depending on the weather, with no fresh water you would only live about 7 days before you died from dehydration. Thats called "dry fasting" and the only people who do that are weird hippies who lie about what they're really doing because we can't go for that long without water.

So you're stranded. If you attempt to drink some seawater then you'll die much quicker. But if it rains and you collect a good amount of rain water which is naturally distilled pure water, you'll use ketones as your main fuel to get you through if you survive. Most people have enough fat stores on them that they can go for 2 months or longer without food and with water. If you lost too much of your electrolytes, even though you still have plenty of fat, that can cause your heart to not beat properly but the body generally has a lot of stores of the electrolytes. You will use some of your protein tissue for glucose as well as your fat stores for ketones but the shorter you fast, the more protein you use for glucose, the longer you fast, the less protein you use for glucose and the more fat you use for ketones. But remember that even then there's still always a need for some amount of glucose. So that is what ketone bodies true purpose is. To convert your body fat into energy for your brain and heart while you hope that the famine ends. Fasting and ketones have been misconstrued and redefined for marketing purposes.

People use medically-supervised water-only fasting as a temporary tool for health. It's not a state that you stay in for life. At some point, you have to go back to eating, storing and burning glucose, also known as sugar, our most precious molecule.

Ray Peat on the stress of ketogenic diets

Possibly the best Peat clip ever:



Ray Peat on the effects of diet devoid of sugar and general diet advice.



I say that because sugar is so misunderstood.
Bravo Sir.
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