Physiologically What Exactly Is Keto-adaptation?

[postman]

What exactly is keto-adaptation? The very significantly increased sense of wellbeing that many keto dieters experience after a while on their diets? Usually 2-4 weeks in, sometimes longer. The standard peaty reply would be that it's the inceased stress hormones that make these people feel better but I don't think this makes much sense. I haven't found many studies that look at the stress hormone levels of long term keto dieters and the few studies that measure stress hormone levels of people in ketosis have varying results. Theoretically, wouldn't a person who has been in ketosis for longer have less stress hormones circulating than a person who has only been in ketosis for a couple of days? Because the blood sugar levels wil normalize over time, and less cortisol will have to be extrected, instead glucagon and adrenaline will take care of gluconeogenesis, cortisol is only excreted when there is actual hypoglycemia, and people in deep ketosis are not hypoglycemic. It is also common for people who start a keto diet to have headaches, insomnia, anxiety, lightheadedness and so forth, during the first couple of weeks of their diet, symptoms that then often resolve after the so called adaptation period. These are all symptoms which we would associate with increased stress hormone levels, which would imply that ketogenic dieters have very high stress levels initially, but that this stress then takes a sharp dive after a couple of weeks

 

[rei]

Keto adaptation is our basic metabolic state not counting the previous 50 years of "modern" society. Only way to mis-adapt is to binge on carbs so much that the body puts all eggs into the carb burning basket just to stay alive, to be able to process the copious amounts shoved in.

In a healthy metabolically flexible state you can switch from carbs to fat and back in an agile way. If you feel like you cannot function with less than 2 meals per day it is a sign of disease and something should be done. IF/keto/low carb are ways to restart the ability to metabolize fat effectively.

 

[RatRancher]

Rei-So you are saying keto and IF are good?
As a reformed keto and then IF person I think they both lead to chronic long term health effects that take years to overcome.

Postman-The stress hormones may not come down. We adapt to them. This chronic diet induced stress affects many areas of life that are not as simple to quantify with a blood test. In the end, imho aftet 4 years of keto dieting, you can create levels of damage to the organism that recovery time may exceed lifespan.
Chronic tachycardia, palpitations, anxiety, memory loss, lack of mental energy, depressive thoughts, no joy in life,sexual issues, muscle loss in smooth muscles affecting digestion and posture....etc etc.

Many of us on this forum are here BECAUSE of keto and IF.

 

[S-VV]

Is this a Ray Peat forum? Or have I accidentally logged into the Peter Attia forum?

Fat burning:
-Produces less CO2 by inhibiting glucose oxidation, therefore =>
-Reduces glucose tolerance
-In case of PUFAs, generates a free radical cascade
-Occurs in a high stress situation. When you restrict carbs, you *force* the body to liberate and oxidise FFA. The hormones that liberate FFA are the stress hormones: Adrenalin (short term) & Cortisol (medium term)
-FFA are toxic. They are surfactants.

Some other facts:
-Overfeeding on carbs raises the metabolic rate to (nearly) match the increased intake, de novo lipogenesis is a minor pathway. No such metabolic up regulation occurs when overfeeding in fats
-Blocking the synthesis of l-Carnitine (an amino acid necessary to metabolise fat) with Mildronate has been shown to be protective under stressful situations.

 

[postman]

Is this a Ray Peat forum? Or have I accidentally logged into the Peter Attia forum?

Fat burning:
-Produces less CO2 by inhibiting glucose oxidation, therefore =>
-Reduces glucose tolerance
-In case of PUFAs, generates a free radical cascade
-Occurs in a high stress situation. When you restrict carbs, you *force* the body to liberate and oxidise FFA. The hormones that liberate FFA are the stress hormones: Adrenalin (short term) & Cortisol (medium term)
-FFA are toxic. They are surfactants.

Some other facts:
-Overfeeding on carbs raises the metabolic rate to (nearly) match the increased intake, de novo lipogenesis is a minor pathway. No such metabolic up regulation occurs when overfeeding in fats
-Blocking the synthesis of l-Carnitine (an amino acid necessary to metabolise fat) with Mildronate has been shown to be protective under stressful situations.

I think you accidentally posted in the wrong thread. This isn't a carbs vs fat thread.

 

[S-VV]

But it is a keto-adaptation thread, whose objective is to oxidize fatty acid. By understanding the difference between fat and carb oxidation, we can understand wether keto adaptation is a good thing.

 

[RatRancher]

Postman,
The adaptation imho is lowering of available energy levels . The flip side is the lowering of energy expenditure by actions and thoughts. I believe every diet out there lowers metabolic rate. These adaptations are necessary to increase the odds of survival in the organism through times of low food availability.
When we look at the stress hormones , they destroy tissue in less critical areas to help feed the more important areas. They slow metanolic rate,and they do not allow for healing and regeneration.
The Minnesota Starvation Experiment took place shoryly before WWII ended. The objective was to see how best to help people in war torn countries recover from starvation. The major take away was that no vitamin or mineral supplement helped recovery unless total caloric intake was in the 3-4000 calorie range.
That is about 1000 grams of protein if we exclude fat. Or about 1 kg of meat. We know that protein is best utilized in smaller doses(30gm). A keto diet to allow for tissue repair would mean you never stop eating day or night. - not to mention the ammonia overload.
---the subjects used in the Mn study were all healthy young men. The effects noted would be best described as clinical depression and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome . All were thin to begin with (as almost everyone was back then) with base metabolic rates of about 2500 calories a day.
Now i know this may seem to be an apples and oranges analogy, but it is connected.
Any keto dieter who consumes insufficient (3000?calories) protein calories is on a starvation diet.
Starvation induces stress hormones. The stress hormones may make one feel better, but unless the calories consumed exceed daily needs the hormones will continue ,until metabolism is slowed to such a degree that the intake of energy exceeds the output.
The weight loss on keto is to loose stored fat. The nechanism uses stress hormones to do it. If the body overcomes (adapts) as some claim, imho its not a reduction in stress hormones. It is adaptation to the new stress level Getting energy from protein Is a catabolic state that ,if not constantly fed will result in muscle wasteing,lower metabolic rate and eventually fat gain.
--- but i could be wrong.

 

[rei]

Rei-So you are saying keto and IF are good?

Good tools to resuscitate the capability to oxidize fat effectively. And magically it also tends to correct the chronic metabolic dysregulation that prevents effective glucose oxidation, but the mechanism is still open for debate and controversial.

I absolutely don't subscribe to the process of eating 4 times per day and snacking in between to keep blood sugar steady and high. Digestion is stressful so 2 meals per day at most for a healthy person with normal capacity to store glycogen. This naturally results in slightly elevated ketones before the meals, which keeps the body keto/fat adapted.

 

[Pufas Shmoofas]

Keto adaptation is our basic metabolic state not counting the previous 50 years of "modern" society. Only way to mis-adapt is to binge on carbs so much that the body puts all eggs into the carb burning basket just to stay alive, to be able to process the copious amounts shoved in.

In a healthy metabolically flexible state you can switch from carbs to fat and back in an agile way. If you feel like you cannot function with less than 2 meals per day it is a sign of disease and something should be done. IF/keto/low carb are ways to restart the ability to metabolize fat effectively.

There is no way keto adaptation is our normal state. A real keto diet is basically all fat and extremely little protein and carbs. Most people who think they are doing keto are just doing low-carb/higher protein and fat diet and not in ketosis.

 

[postman]

There is no way keto adaptation is our normal state. A real keto diet is basically all fat and very little protein. Its like eating almost pure fat all the time and was used for people with specific illnesses. Most people who think they are doing keto are just doing low-carb diet, which is probably fine your just converting some of that protein into sugar anyway.

This is not true, this is what some scientists used to think but all modern studies show otherwise. Gluconeogensis is demand driven not supply driven and eating a lot of protein will not kick you out of ketosis.

 

[Pufas Shmoofas]

This is not true, this is what some scientists used to think but all modern studies show otherwise. Gluconeogensis is demand driven not supply driven and eating a lot of protein will not kick you out of ketosis.

Yea I've heard this and if its true then I guess its right, but don't we do better when we burn sugar? So dont we want the demand to be high?

If your eating 20 gram carbs and 200 gram protein, your body probably needs more carbs and less protein then that. Or at least I'd think you'd want it to. Why would you want to burn fat as a main fuel source?

 

[RatRancher]

Postman, I will just leave this here ... I could not find anything on google about high protein and staying in ketosis.

Ketogenic Diet - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf

A well-formulated ketogenic diet, besides limiting carbohydrates, also limits protein intake moderately to less than 1g/lb body weight, unless individuals are performing heavy exercise involving weight training when the protein intake can be increased to 1.5g/lb body weight. This is to prevent the endogenous production of glucose in the body via gluconeogenesis. However, it does not restrict fat or overall daily calories.....


A ketogenic diet may be followed for a minimum of 2 to 3 weeks up to 6 to 12 months. Close monitoring of renal functions while on a ketogenic diet is imperative, and the transition from a ketogenic diet to a standard diet should be gradual and well controlled.


While in the short term the ketogenic diet may help one lose weight, this is not sustained over the long run. In addition, countless studies show that the diet is associated with many complications that often lead to emergency room visits and admissions for dehydration, electrolyte disturbances, and hypoglycemia

 

[postman]

Yea I've heard this and if its true then I guess its right, but don't we do better when we burn sugar? So dont we want the demand to be high?

If your eating 20 gram carbs and 200 gram protein, your body probably needs more carbs and less protein then that. Or at least I'd think you'd want it to. Why would you want to burn fat as a main fuel source?

Most cells preferentially burn ketones over glucose, including the brain to a large degree. I don't know if it's better to burn glucose or ketones. Ray likes MCTs but he thinks glucose is the best because of the CO2 production and dislikes ketosis because of gluconeogenesis. But this is not the topic of this thread, this is not a carbs vs fats thread.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the brain is the only organ that absolutely needs glucose. A quick google search tells me the average brain burns about 120 grams of sugar per day. In deep ketosis the brain can actually use ketones but not exclusively, from the papers I've seen it still needs about 1/3rd of it's fuel from glucose, that would be about 40 grams of sugar. How much protein does it take to make 40 grams of glucose?

One reason you'd want to burn ketones instead of glucose is if you have some mysterious metabolic issue and can't seem to be able to oxidize glucose properly, then ketosis might be beneficial. There are some objective beneficial effects of being in ketosis, like the increased GABA activity.

 

[postman]

Postman, I will just leave this here ... I could not find anything on google about high protein and staying in ketosis.

Ketogenic Diet - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf

A well-formulated ketogenic diet, besides limiting carbohydrates, also limits protein intake moderately to less than 1g/lb body weight, unless individuals are performing heavy exercise involving weight training when the protein intake can be increased to 1.5g/lb body weight. This is to prevent the endogenous production of glucose in the body via gluconeogenesis. However, it does not restrict fat or overall daily calories.....


A ketogenic diet may be followed for a minimum of 2 to 3 weeks up to 6 to 12 months. Close monitoring of renal functions while on a ketogenic diet is imperative, and the transition from a ketogenic diet to a standard diet should be gradual and well controlled.


While in the short term the ketogenic diet may help one lose weight, this is not sustained over the long run. In addition, countless studies show that the diet is associated with many complications that often lead to emergency room visits and admissions for dehydration, electrolyte disturbances, and hypoglycemia

That's outdated big pharma textbook nonsense. There might be some benefit to limiting protein in the treatment of epilepsy, I don't know, but protein intake does not disrupt the production of ketones. If you don't eat enough protein to make enough glucose via gluconeogenesis, while on a ketogenic diet, you will break down muscle tissue instead.

 

[Pufas Shmoofas]

Just because the body can survive and not die doing something doesn't mean its best.

 

[postman]

Just because the body can survive and not die doing something doesn't mean its best.

Ok.

 

[rei]

There is no way keto adaptation is our normal state. A real keto diet is basically all fat and extremely little protein and carbs. Most people who think they are doing keto are just doing low-carb/higher protein and fat diet and not in ketosis.

I meant nothing more by keto adaptation than being able to effortlessly switch to burning fat if sugar is not coming in. To someone else it means deep ketosis that is achieved 24+ hours after previous carb intake. The first is something everyone should handle, the second is more like a medical intervention and probably is unnecessarily stressful for the body in the long run.

 

[milkboi]

I felt always pretty awful when in ketosis, maybe except the short-lived, manic rush of dopamine and stress hormones after a "bulletproof coffee". Really don't know why I was on such a bs diet for such a long time.

 

[Rafael Lao Wai]

Fructose decreases ketone production more than glucose, likely because of fructose's effect on liver glycogen repletion. Galactose may be even more powerful. Someone mentioned a few years ago that if you eat just glucose and very little fructose you can actually be in a mild ketosis the whole day( except for the minutes after you ingest the meal). That explains why people who go on a high starch, low fructose diet lose a lot of weight: they're burning some fat even on a high carb diet. That also explans why I didn't feel good until I introduced sucrose back into my diet. Starch simply wasn't enough to switch my cells from fat burning to sugar burning.

What exactly is keto-adaptation? The very significantly increased sense of wellbeing that many keto dieters experience after a while on their diets? Usually 2-4 weeks in, sometimes longer. The standard peaty reply would be that it's the inceased stress hormones that make these people feel better but I don't think this makes much sense. I haven't found many studies that look at the stress hormone levels of long term keto dieters and the few studies that measure stress hormone levels of people in ketosis have varying results. Theoretically, wouldn't a person who has been in ketosis for longer have less stress hormones circulating than a person who has only been in ketosis for a couple of days? Because the blood sugar levels wil normalize over time, and less cortisol will have to be extrected, instead glucagon and adrenaline will take care of gluconeogenesis, cortisol is only excreted when there is actual hypoglycemia, and people in deep ketosis are not hypoglycemic. It is also common for people who start a keto diet to have headaches, insomnia, anxiety, lightheadedness and so forth, during the first couple of weeks of their diet, symptoms that then often resolve after the so called adaptation period. These are all symptoms which we would associate with increased stress hormone levels, which would imply that ketogenic dieters have very high stress levels initially, but that this stress then takes a sharp dive after a couple of weeks

Being keto-adapted, as I see it, means that your cells improved their fat burning processes and the liver started producing much more ketones than usual( more widespread beta-oxidation and ketone utilization). But I don't see that as a good thing. As Ray has said, old cells and young cells can burn fat at the same rate, but old cells fail to oxidize carbs at the same rate as young cells. Indeed, after the "low carb flu" is gone, many people feel really good, but if the stress really went down to "normal", then why do these same people, who supposedly aren't very stressed anymore, tend to lose a lot of hair on a ketogenic diet? Dr. Mercola, Dave Asprey, Kris Gunnars, etc. Haidut said he lost all of his hair while doing a hardcore low carb diet and, now that he eats adequate carbs, his hair is coming back( I believe he said he went from completely bald to having a receding hairline). If the ketones produced during ketogenic diets were enough to supress the huge stress caused by carbohydrate deprivation, then we would be seeing lots of people regrowing hair after the period of keto-adaptation, but, as far as I know, that isn't the case.

 

[Rafael Lao Wai]

I felt always pretty awful when in ketosis, maybe except the short-lived, manic rush of dopamine and stress hormones after a "bulletproof coffee". Really don't know why I was on such a bs diet for such a long time.

I too felt pretty bad on low carb diets. Noticed no benefits at all, only bad results. Many people stay on low-carb diets for so long due to fear-mongering. "Don't eat sugar, it will give you diabetes and it will make your leg turn black and fall off". They think there is no other way to health. Also, due to so many people being vitamin B1 deficient, they think they somehow can't ever tolerate carbs again without getting blood sugar crashes, so they resign to a terrible, low carb life. The brain washing that the media does helps steer people into the wrong way and keep them there. I spent 2 years on a low carb diet and it was awful. In comparison, I've been on high sugar diet for almost 2 years now, and I'm feeling fantastic. I understand what my cells need and I eat as much as I want. I don't need to distract myself to "stop my sugar addiction". Knowing that each sweet thing that you eat is actually making you healthier is simply amazing.