[HN Gopher] Can ketones enhance cognitive function and protect b...
___________________________________________________________________
Can ketones enhance cognitive function and protect brain networks?
Author : XzetaU8
Score : 81 points
Date : 2024-06-01 08:26 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.urmc.rochester.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.urmc.rochester.edu)
| ozim wrote:
| Reads like beginning of a new fad just like keto diet.
|
| My idea is that sugar in quantities we ingest nowadays damages
| all and makes more problems. It is not that ketones are some
| magic thing. Only that sugar is rocket fuel for the brain so it
| should not be used without care.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > Reads like beginning of a new fad just like keto diet.
|
| It won't be, ketone supplements are too expensive for that.
|
| > My idea is that sugar in quantities we ingest nowadays
| damages all and makes more problems
|
| This is nonsense. Sugar is an easily accessed fuel that your
| body can readily use for a variety of activities.
| kjksf wrote:
| It's not nonsense and you're not addressing the main point:
| overuse.
|
| A glass of wine is harmless. A bottle of hard spirit will
| poison and potentially kill you.
|
| Your body can nullify small amounts of alcohol. But if you
| drink more toxin than what your body can neutralize it
| poisons you.
|
| Sugar and carbs rise glucose level in your blood. When it's
| small amount your blood will re-distribute it to cells as
| fuel.
|
| But if you eat enough sugar and carbs that your body cannot
| absorb all the glucose, you become fat and develop diabetes.
|
| So yeah, sugar is fuel and tastes good but in modern food
| products it's used everywhere which makes moderate use very
| hard to achieve.
|
| That's why 99 million of Americans are overweight, 70 million
| are obese.
|
| 29 million have diagnosed diabetes, 10 million estimated
| undiagnosed diabetes and 115 million pre-diabetes.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| You're confusing sugar and carbs with excess calories.
| Excess calories are harmful, sugar and carbs are not.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Sugar and carbs are very calorie dense, so it's a
| distinction without a difference on a practical level.
| wathef wrote:
| A carbohydrate and protein have the same calorie content,
| around 4kcal per gram. Fat is 9kcal per gram.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Again, on a practical level - what's easier to over
| consume? Carbs and sugars or fats?
| hawk_ wrote:
| It's perhaps more accurate to say sugars and simple carbs
| are easy to absorb whereas fats and complex carbs are
| harder to absorb. A single gram fat is the most calorie
| dense substance by weight that we can consume I think.
| It's just in practice it's hard to become fat by
| consuming only excess fat.
| nradov wrote:
| High blood glucose levels are literally toxic. This will
| damage every cell in your body. Your body can buffer
| sugar intake to an extent in order to maintain
| homeostasis but over time this tends to cause insulin
| resistance. A little sugar is fine but larger amounts are
| poisonous. The exact limit depends on a number of factors
| such as muscle mass and liver glucagon level.
| layla5alive wrote:
| And proportion of visceral fat stores, genetics,
| epigenetics, etc.
| GivinStatic wrote:
| Calories are pretty much meaningless. The kind of food,
| proportions of carbohydrates, and other components is
| very critical. Nutrition =/= filling gas in a car.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > Calories are pretty much meaningless.
|
| I think you'll have to expand on what you're trying to
| say here as taking it at face value is clearly untrue.
| francisofascii wrote:
| Sugar calories are not equal to say, calories in nuts.
| The sugar calories are indeed worse. One reason for this
| is the caloric energy in nuts are not fully absorbed like
| with sugar. So even though nuts are energy dense, they
| won't cause obesity like sugar.
| dcow wrote:
| calories in / calories out is a foolproof way to track
| weight gain/loss over extended periods of time. So people
| tend to oversimplify nutrition and diet to this one
| number.
|
| But it is indisputable that your body processes carbs,
| protein, and fat in very different ways. If you only eat
| donuts and bacon and candy consistently, in normal
| caloric levels, then you will likely develop type 2
| diabetes (or more precisely insulin resistance). Glucose
| in your blood is toxic. Are you really going to argue
| that this diet is perfectly safe?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > Are you really going to argue that this diet is
| perfectly safe?
|
| I'm not sure that I ever claimed it was? All I'm saying
| is there's no point in vilifying those food types as they
| can be part of a perfectly healthy diet.
| dcow wrote:
| There is (and let's not bey coy: arguing all calories are
| equal implies a sugar diet is perfectly healthy). People
| literally don't understand how bad excessive sugar intake
| is because it's not vilified enough. A mature adult
| understands that everyone has vices and all things are
| usually fine in moderation, and that's how we should
| approach sugar. I strongly believe in 20 years sugar will
| be seen similar to tobacco. And that's okay. You and I
| can still enjoy an occasional donut.
| riehwvfbk wrote:
| Just because something is less pleasant doesn't automatically
| mean it's good. On the surface, it would be weird for ketones
| to improve brain activity - after all "keto flu" is a thing,
| and it is definitely is not a state of high performance. And
| if ketones were that healthy then diabetics would the the
| healthiest people of all. Instead, they are poison, and this
| is well documented.
| ddorian43 wrote:
| Keto flu happens when you transition because of loosing too
| much water that was retained by carbs and electrolytes gets
| flushed with the water. Very easy to fix by taking a
| electrolyte supplement when starting keto (LMNT etc).
|
| > then diabetics would the the healthiest people of all.
| Instead, they are poison, and this is well documented.
|
| It is documented on T1D, where they make no insulin at all!
| Keto still helps on T1D, you will always need insulin, just
| less, and have more stable blood glucose (and all the
| benefits that entails with it).
|
| For T2D, it's the best solution for it (see virtahealth.com
| for a great company that helps on this).
| fl0ki wrote:
| > On the surface, it would be weird for ketones to improve
| brain activity - after all "keto flu" is a thing, and it is
| definitely is not a state of high performance.
|
| Keto flu is from a _low_ level of ketones, not a high
| level. Once enough ketones become available there is no
| more keto flu. From there most people feel at least normal,
| and many feel a bit better than normal because the cycles
| of both energy and satiety are smoothed out by the change
| in fuel sources.
|
| > And if ketones were that healthy then diabetics would the
| the healthiest people of all.
|
| Diabetics have health complications precisely because they
| cannot moderate their blood glucose, with or without
| ketones. Ketones do not regulate blood glucose, insulin
| does. Unlike glucose, excess ketones are harmlessly
| urinated out, they do not need insulin to process them.
|
| Glucose in the blood is toxic [1] if it isn't metabolised
| because of lack of insulin, and even most diabetics consume
| enough carbohydrates for this to be a risk. There is a
| clear relationship between availability of insulin and safe
| levels of glucose consumption, in fact injecting insulin is
| usually the first intervention if blood glucose is at
| dangerously high levels. Search for insulin in that paper.
|
| Ketones don't enter into this picture at all as either a
| toxin or the solution to toxicity. Precisely the point is
| that ketones can substitute for most of your glucose needs
| without risking toxicity like glucose does.
|
| If all of that isn't enough, diabetics often do better
| following a ketogenic diet [2], not worse. When you can't
| naturally produce enough insulin to process the glucose you
| consume for daily energy, producing ketones instead is a
| safe workaround which your body performs naturally. What
| part of that is evidence for ketones themselves being the
| problem?
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2738809/
|
| [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31336509/
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| > diabetics often do better following a ketogenic diet
| [2]
|
| Your citation is _a single case study_ over a short
| period of time. It does not support your claim of
| "often". This is deceptive citation and undermines your
| arguments.
| fl0ki wrote:
| Fair enough, thanks for the criticism. Here a few more
| studies:
|
| https://nutritionandmetabolism.biomedcentral.com/articles
| /10...
|
| > The LCKD improved glycemic control in patients with
| type 2 diabetes such that diabetes medications were
| discontinued or reduced in most participants.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22673594/
|
| > The LCD and LCKD had beneficial effects on all the
| parameters examined.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6024764/
|
| > LCD can improve blood glucose more than LFD in Chinese
| patients with T2DM. It can also regulate blood lipid,
| reduce BMI, and decrease insulin dose in patients with
| T2DM.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34338787/
|
| > The VLCK diet appears to control glycemia and decrease
| body weight for up to 6 months in people with obesity and
| diabetes. Beneficial changes in serum triglycerides and
| high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, along with
| reductions in antidiabetic medications, continued in the
| VLCK group until 12 months. However, the quality of
| currently available evidence is not sufficient to
| recommend VLCK diets. A major limitation of the VLCK diet
| is patients' lack of adherence to carbohydrate
| restriction.
|
| So sure, there are issues with adherence and the volume &
| quality of data here. That doesn't invalidate the trends
| seen across every study that looks into this. It's more
| than one study and, within each study, it indeed seems to
| benefit most participants.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| This is much better, thanks. I'm far more convinced now.
| dcow wrote:
| Furthermore there is some indication that people
| experiencing type 2 diabetes are suffering from
| essentially a worn out pancreas. In other words their
| insulin resistance is a result of constantly eating more
| sugars/carbs than the organ can keep up with. Switching
| to a keto diet instead of supplementing insulin gives the
| organ a break where it can actually start to heal and
| return to a more normal insulin production routine,
| ultimately meaning that these people can eat a donut
| occasionally without requiring the insulin supplement
| like they otherwise would with a traditional treatment
| plan where their body hasn't been given a break from the
| onslaught of glucose. This can be life changing for a
| type 2 diabetic, because their lifestyle returns to
| normal outside of paying attention to their diet.
| layla5alive wrote:
| Insulin resistance is a quality of the cells in your body
| which cease responding to insulin at their receptors. So
| higher levels of insulin fail to reduce blood sugar
| levels. This is the hallmark of T2D.
|
| You are confusing this with beta cell function, which
| also becomes impaired in many T2D people, where the islet
| cells become damaged, insulin production is subsequently
| impaired as well, this is a later stage effect in T2D
| progression.
|
| T2D likely manifests from prolonged energy surplus
| leading to oxidative damage to cells and accumulation of
| excess fat stores, particularly visceral fat stores in
| the organs - the cell damage and overfull visceral and
| sometimes subcutaneous fat stores both lead to hormonal
| and epigenetic changes and directly to insulin
| resistance.
|
| That's still oversimplified, but it's a useful model.
| onethought wrote:
| Well, Alcohol is an even more easily accessible fuel that
| your body can readily use for a variety of activities... but
| its negatives are well understood...
| ddorian43 wrote:
| > My idea is that sugar in quantities we ingest nowadays
| damages all and makes more problems.
|
| What about little kids with epilepsy? They haven't had years of
| sugar to get damaged. Maybe they're susceptible for early onset
| damage?
|
| > It is not that ketones are some magic thing. Only that sugar
| is rocket fuel for the brain so it should not be used without
| care.
|
| The keto diet for epilepsy (psychiatry/cancer mostly copy it as
| far as I know) needs high ketone levels (at least 2).
|
| Even doing carnivore (0 carbs) with medium fat/protein won't
| help, you won't achieve the blood numbers & won't get results.
|
| You _NEED_ to get ~80-90% of calories from fat to achieve
| consistent blood levels (ketones 2-4+, glucose 4) for epilepsy
| version.
|
| Think of it as a drug dosage. Some people might need lower
| dosage, but the standard is at the dosage I wrote (blood test
| GKI 1-2).
| guerby wrote:
| keto diet is a fad, that's big news! Please write a peer
| reviewed article in the BMJ about it we all want to know.
|
| https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/02/bmjnph-20...
|
| "Insights from a general practice service evaluation supporting
| a lower carbohydrate diet in patients with type 2 diabetes
| mellitus and prediabetes: a secondary analysis of routine
| clinic data including HbA1c, weight and prescribing over 6
| years"
|
| Most read paper of the BMJ ever.
|
| Follow-up:
|
| https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/early/2023/01/02/bmjnph-20...
|
| "What predicts drug-free type 2 diabetes remission? Insights
| from an 8-year general practice service evaluation of a lower
| carbohydrate diet with weight loss"
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Neither of these papers are keto diets specifically. It looks
| like these patients just had way more personal one on one
| time with their doctors, dedicated group sessions, and carb
| information. Without actual carb counts there's no way to
| know if this is actually keto. Importantly, neither paper
| specified the _high fat_ part of the keto diet, which makes
| me think neither paper actually supports keto.
|
| Btw I'm not personally an anti-keto guy I just dislike
| mindless paper citations.
| Aurornis wrote:
| You linked two papers about reducing carbohydrate intake,
| which is not a ketogenic diet.
|
| A ketogenic diet involves severe carbohydrate restriction and
| even major protein restriction. The research you shared isn't
| applicable.
|
| This is a huge problem in online keto discourse: People share
| a lot of "research" that isn't applicable, such as these low-
| carb papers or other research about treating epilepsy with
| keto diets.
|
| You can't just look for studies about _lower_ carb with
| positive conclusions and assume that this implies the keto
| diet is good.
| dcow wrote:
| I was with my wife during her gestational diabetes
| nutrition session. The diet they recommended was for all
| intents and purposes a ketogenic diet. The only carbs were
| from natural sugars in fruits and veggies. They just didn't
| push the fat and squeeze the carbs as much as you see in
| keto enthusiast literature. I have a hypothesis though: the
| keto community does this as a "failsafe" way to instruct
| curious people how to experience ketosis for the first
| time. People practicing keto long term (once they've
| experienced the acute benefits and/or initial weight loss)
| are almost always landing on their own personal watermark
| which very likely looks like taking in 60+g of carbs a day
| in a state of "nutritional" ketosis where there are only
| slightly elevated levels of keytones (~0.4-1.0 mmol/l) in
| the blood compared to the level of "therapeutic" ketosis
| used to treat epilepsy (3.0-5.0 mmol/l).
| guerby wrote:
| The definition of nutritional ketosis is just a
| restriction in carbohydrate intake to accelerate the
| production of ketones by the body:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6472268/
|
| There is no specific ketone cutoff level specified, and
| of course the impact of X g of carbohydrate will vary per
| individual, during the day and between days.
|
| The paper I cited are the end stage validation that a
| treatment works: using it on patient in their normal
| everyday life (instead of being in clinic/laboratory) -
| note that they see the doctor 3 times 10 minutes per
| year.
|
| Of course no one knows how much carbohydrate they take
| but the guidelines (as presented in the paper) are
| clearly steering them to nutritional ketosis.
|
| As or clinical studies there are many of them done in the
| past decades, for a ten years ago summary for example:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20150702005325/http://www.ome
| ga3...
|
| Dr Westman (the main author, Past-President and Master
| Fellow of the Obesity Medicine Association and Fellow of
| The Obesity Society, he also has a youtube channel) uses
| 20g/day carbohydrate guideline and does not recommand the
| use of a ketone meter for his patients.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| >new fad just like keto diet
|
| The keto diet has been around over 100 years and it was
| developed in a clinical setting for children with epilepsy to
| reproduce the benefits of fasting - which has been known for
| thousands of years to prevent seizures - while providing a long
| term solution and not deprive children of calories.
|
| It's not exactly a fad, it's just that there are a lot more
| studies being conducted on the benefits - like fasting studies
| which lead the discovery of autophagy and the Nobel prize in
| 2016.
|
| The idea sugar is rocket fuel for the brain, is a little
| misguided. Certain sugars spike insulin triggering anabolic
| response getting glucose to the cells quickly, but that doesn't
| make glucose more efficient for the brain.
|
| Ketones are smaller than glucose molecules and more efficient
| at crossing the blood brain barrier. Rocket fuel for the brain
| is being in a deep state of ketosis and consuming medium chain
| fatty acids (e.g. coconut oil) or beta hydroxybutyrate (i.e.
| exogenous ketones).
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The keto diet has been around over 100 years and it was
| developed in a clinical setting for children with epilepsy
|
| Yes, exactly. It was developed and studied in the context of
| epilepsy treatment.
|
| The current wave of keto influencers are pushing it as
| something else, though.
|
| I have tried keto and noticed some interesting effects, but
| the impact on certain parameters of my lipid bloodwork was
| undeniably bad no matter what I tried. The keto community
| works overtime to downplay the possible negative effects of
| the diet, but actual cardio and lipid researchers have very
| different opinions.
| dcow wrote:
| I don't think it's so insidious. People see real benefit
| and results from highly restricting carbs. _Something_ is
| happening, it's not just a fad. Sure, it's fine to debate
| the pros and cons but to outright disparage it because
| there a community of excited people who have had life
| changing experiences talking about it positively seems
| overly reactionary.
| jajko wrote:
| Yeah, those excited folks go often a bit mental over the
| board and praise it like second coming of Jesus, that's
| what most folks have problems with. Rational discussion
| about pros and cons is rare.
| dcow wrote:
| When you've been unhealthy and struggling to maintain a
| healthy body for years in a society that indexes way way
| way to heavily on carbs because they're cheap and equally
| isn't honest about the toxicity of glucose, you can kinda
| see why people get so enthusiastic about it. Sure it can
| be annoying but there are problems on both sides and
| people that say sugar is fine eat it at will are starting
| to come off as maliciously delusional to me of late.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| Discovering health tends to do that to people. It doesn't
| matter if it's discovering keto, carnivore, vegetarian,
| vegan, or exercise.
|
| When people commit to improving their health, and begin
| to experience improvements, for better or worse it is
| like the second coming of Jesus. Particularly diabetics
| that make lifestyle changes, lose significant amounts of
| weight and get off insulin. Nearly everyone who
| experiences that feels that if they can do it anyone can
| do it, and they tend to share their experiences
| enthusiastically and rightfully so.
| shlant wrote:
| > Something is happening, it's not just a fad
|
| these are not mutually exclusive. It is a fad AND
| something is happening.
|
| That something comes down to two major things about low
| carb/carnivore diets:
|
| 1. You are removing processed foods. Going from a
| Standard American Diet to basically anything that
| involves more whole foods is going to be healthier for
| you and make you feel better. This doesn't mean that the
| new diet is optimal but it can be a step in the right
| direction.
|
| 2. Restricting your diet down to a few types of food is
| going to remove a lot of allergens. If you only eat meat
| for example, you are removing literally every single non-
| meat allergen in your diet - most people have some sort
| of food sensitivity (lactose intolerance being a common
| one) so you are going to feel better when you remove
| those allergens. However, this does not mean that
| accidental elimination diets are the long term solution.
| You should slowly add back foods and see what you react
| to so you can do something less extreme but still feel
| good doing it.
|
| So yes a lot of people feel better on these diets but
| that does not indicate they are healthy long term or
| superior to other options.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| And you are probably basing that on the fact that the two
| standard lipid markers for HDL and LDL went up, right?
|
| And you probably ignored any that the ratio probably
| improved between "good" and "bad" lipids? I guess you
| didn't just eat lots of bad fats but also improved the
| composition of fats you ate?
|
| Lipid research is sponsored by pharma a lot. They need to
| push their statins.
|
| Anecdotal datum of one: I happen to have high cholesterol
| no matter what I do. You have to fast in order to do the
| lipid blood tests. Sometimes I forgot to fast and have even
| eaten eggs. My lipid profile was better in those cases. I
| also got muscle cramps from taking statins. The heart is a
| muscle and those cramps can kill you. Instantly.
| shlant wrote:
| > And you probably ignored any that the ratio probably
| improved between "good" and "bad" lipids?
|
| "For predicting your risk of heart disease, many
| healthcare professionals now believe that determining
| your non-HDL cholesterol level may be more useful than
| calculating your cholesterol ratio"[1]. Additionally,
| "extremely high HDL-C levels are associated with an
| increased risk of age-related macular degeneration (also
| genetically), infectious disease, and all-cause
| mortality."[2]
|
| [1]https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-
| blood-ch...
|
| [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10119031/
|
| > Lipid research is sponsored by pharma a lot. They need
| to push their statins.
|
| A comment in a keto/low carb discussion believing in a
| statin conspiracy? shocked.
|
| > Anecdotal datum of one
|
| Entirely irrelevant
| tharkun__ wrote:
| [1] It's funny. My Browser shows I visited that link
| before ;) A comment in a keto/low carb
| discussion believing in a statin conspiracy? shocked.
|
| I'm not on Keto. I'm not on an actual low carb diet. I'm
| just not afraid of eating lots of good fats. I'm not
| afraid of eggs or cream any longer.
|
| I don't believe in a "statin conspiracy". There's no
| conspiracy needed. We've seen over and over again with
| lots of things that companies favor funding research that
| shows something that sells their product or they outright
| lie (sorry "do marketing"). Leaded gasoline? Milk is good
| for you, make your children drink more? Butter is bad?
|
| The statins causing muscle cramps are a fact and not a
| conspiracy. I got statins in ever increasing dosages
| because they didn't help. When the cramps started, my
| doctor took me off statins. When I then did try Keto all
| of my blood markers that were either bad or borderline
| went into completely normal territory. Except for lipids
| that did the usual "hover around some really high and
| absolutely bad for you territory".
|
| Again, a datum of one. But when all the things done to me
| with evidence from statistically relevant studies and
| research doesn't help and actually makes things worse but
| the statistically not significant thing works to improve
| all of the markers of statistically proven blood testing,
| then this anecdotal internet person here will stick with
| what works. YMMV as always. Entirely
| irrelevant
|
| My anecdotal datum of one was marked as such. On purpose.
| No need for this entirely irrelevant comment of yours.
| The person I replied to did not and drew a wide ranging
| societally generalizing argument from his datum of one.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Keto influencers? My doctor recommended it for weight loss
| and it's probably saved my life. You're being pretty
| negative because of your once experience on something that
| does help people and does have results.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| I think you are throwing the baby out with the bath water,
| sure there are probably influencers pedaling keto product,
| just like corn, eggs, coffee, sugar, cereal, and meat have
| entire lobbying industries pedaling bad science and bad
| food stuffs.
|
| But when you reply "yes, exactly" to the fact that the keto
| diet was developed in a clinical setting over 100 years ago
| to mimic the benefits of fasting and offer a n=1 anecdote
| about your lipid panel, that's no better than anyone you
| are accusing of downplaying possible negative effects.
| shlant wrote:
| > it was developed in a clinical setting for children with
| epilepsy to reproduce the benefits of fasting - which has
| been known for thousands of years to prevent seizures - while
| providing a long term solution and not deprive children of
| calories.
|
| I don't know why people still use this as any sort of
| argument for keto in the general population. Most people are
| not children with epilepsy and even for children, the
| keto/low carb diets has many downsides most notably growth
| retardation, kidney stones and bone mineral loss.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| When people wrongly claim keto is a new "fad diet" you
| don't know why people would point out that it's been around
| for over 100 years highlighting there are ample subjects
| that had adhered to it their entire lives from childhood?
|
| Are there many diets that have lifelong adherents over
| their lifetimes over the last 100 years from the general
| population that have been studied?
| snitch182 wrote:
| Does that mean you do good by your brain when you do a hard burn
| exercise once in a while ? After all those substances are a
| byproduct of burning fat instead of glucose by your liver. Or do
| i need a fat rich feast ?
| aszantu wrote:
| eat as much fat as you want, just leave out the carbs and sugar
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Or just take a ketone supplement and eat normal food.
| sgonz wrote:
| Has any research been done on what happens when the body is
| in a state of high glucose and ketones at the same time?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Not that I'm aware of but a number of professional
| cycling teams have been using them for a few years so
| there may be something in the works.
| layla5alive wrote:
| Ketoacidosis.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| I don't think elite cycling teams would be taking these
| supps if it caused that, do you?
| layla5alive wrote:
| @sgonz That state results in ketoacidosis, which is
| fatal.
| croes wrote:
| "The dose makes the poison"
| pjerem wrote:
| True.
|
| But contrary to fats (or proteins or fibers), sugar is also
| addictive, doesn't satiate your body, and ultimately
| generates hypoglycemia some hours later for you to eat more
| sugar.
|
| So yes, the dose makes the poison but sugar is the only one
| poison your body accepts to absorb in immense quantities.
| francisofascii wrote:
| This. It is hard overeat if your diet consists of fish, nuts,
| seeds, and olive oil.
| batperson wrote:
| Nuts, seeds and olive oil are all extremely high in
| calories.
| francisofascii wrote:
| It is not intuitive, but a diet high in fat will make you
| less fat than a diet of sugar and carbs. The calories in
| nuts are not all absorbed.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > Does that mean you do good by your brain when you do a hard
| burn exercise once in a while ?
|
| There's a whole bunch of stuff happening in your body post
| strenuous exercise so it'd be hard to isolate ketones
| specifically from that.
| layla5alive wrote:
| But yes, exercise is very good for the brain.
| kjksf wrote:
| Your body starts producing ketons when you stop eating.
| Typically it starts 12 to 24 hrs.
|
| It'll start faster if you don't eat carbs / sugar and instead
| use protein because the body start producing ketons when it
| runs out of glycogen stores. Sugar and carbs add glucose to
| your blood. The less of it you have, the faster the body will
| start producing ketons.
|
| Exercise also helps because it uses glucose faster. Of course
| assuming you'll not just start eating carbs / sugar after
| exercise. That includes all drinks that include sugar.
|
| But really you'll get most benefit of exercise just from a walk
| after meal.
|
| Why after meal? Because that's when glucose spikes and a walk
| uses glucose faster.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Don't you produce ketones any time you can't get enough
| energy from carbohydrates?
| dcow wrote:
| You have it backwards. Your liver can convert protein into
| glucose in a process called gluconeogenesis
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis
| aszantu wrote:
| not surprising, I've been collecting for a while. I think Brain
| and Food absolutely is connected. Added the article to the list.
|
| https://github.com/cutestuff/FoodDepressionConundrum/blob/ma...
| gradus_ad wrote:
| Alzheimer's is related to insulin resistance? The article
| presents this as consensus opinion but is it really?
| lhl wrote:
| I think it's fair at this point to say there is a clear
| relationship. The earliest article I have in my (relatively
| cursory) research file on the metabolic relationship for AD is
| from 1994:
|
| Fukuyama, Hidenao, Masafumi Ogawa, Hiroshi Yamauchi, Shinya
| Yamaguchi, Jun Kimura, Yoshiaru Yonekura, and Junji Konishi.
| "Altered Cerebral Energy Metabolism in Alzheimer's Disease: A
| PET Study." Journal of Nuclear Medicine 35, no. 1 (January 1,
| 1994): 1-6.
|
| Here are some more recent reviews discussing the connection
| (recent reviews are good not just because they take into
| account the latest developments, but they also give you better
| references to go through for further research). Note, these
| reviews are from completely different/unrelated research teams
| from different countries:
|
| Yoon, Ji Hye, JooHyun Hwang, Sung Un Son, Junhyuk Choi, Seung-
| Won You, Hyunwoo Park, Seung-Yun Cha, and Sungho Maeng. "How
| Can Insulin Resistance Cause Alzheimer's Disease?"
| International Journal of Molecular Sciences 24, no. 4 (February
| 9, 2023): 3506. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24043506.
|
| Rhea, Elizabeth M., Manon Leclerc, Hussein N. Yassine, Ana W.
| Capuano, Han Tong, Vladislav A. Petyuk, Shannon L. Macauley, et
| al. "State of the Science on Brain Insulin Resistance and
| Cognitive Decline Due to Alzheimer's Disease." Aging and
| Disease, August 17, 2023, 0.
| https://doi.org/10.14336/AD.2023.0814.
|
| Kshirsagar, Viplav, Chetan Thingore, and Archana Juvekar.
| "Insulin Resistance: A Connecting Link between Alzheimer's
| Disease and Metabolic Disorder." Metabolic Brain Disease 36,
| no. 1 (January 2021): 67-83.
| https://doi.org/10.1007/s11011-020-00622-2.
| zx8080 wrote:
| By the Betteridge's law of headlines [0], the answer should be
| "no".
|
| [0] -
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...
| lhl wrote:
| And yet the wide-ranging neuroprotective effects of ketones
| have been quite well documented...
|
| Poff, Angela M., Jong M. Rho, and Dominic P. D'Agostino.
| "Ketone Administration for Seizure Disorders: History and
| Rationale for Ketone Esters and Metabolic Alternatives."
| Frontiers in Neuroscience 13 (2019).
| https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.01041.
|
| Bernini, Adriano, Mojgan Masoodi, Daria Solari, John-Paul
| Miroz, Laurent Carteron, Nicolas Christinat, Paola Morelli, et
| al. "Modulation of Cerebral Ketone Metabolism Following
| Traumatic Brain Injury in Humans." Journal of Cerebral Blood
| Flow & Metabolism, October 24, 2018, 0271678X18808947.
| https://doi.org/10.1177/0271678X18808947.
|
| McDonald, Tanya, Mackenzie Cervenka, Tanya J. W. McDonald, and
| Mackenzie C. Cervenka. "The Expanding Role of Ketogenic Diets
| in Adult Neurological Disorders." Brain Sciences 8, no. 8
| (August 8, 2018): 148. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci8080148.
|
| Koppel, Scott J., and Russell H. Swerdlow.
| "Neuroketotherapeutics: A Modern Review of a Century-Old
| Therapy." Neurochemistry International 117 (July 2018): 114-25.
| https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuint.2017.05.019.
|
| White, Hayden, Karthik Venkatesh, and Bala Venkatesh.
| "Systematic Review of the Use of Ketones in the Management of
| Acute and Chronic Neurological Disorders." Journal of Neurology
| and Neuroscience 08, no. 02 (2017).
| https://doi.org/10.21767/2171-6625.1000188.
|
| Prins, Mayumi L., and Joyce H. Matsumoto. "The Collective
| Therapeutic Potential of Cerebral Ketone Metabolism in
| Traumatic Brain Injury." Journal of Lipid Research 55, no. 12
| (December 2014): 2450-57. https://doi.org/10.1194/jlr.R046706.
| mathgeek wrote:
| The answer is more often "yes" when referring to academic
| studies, as your Wikipedia source calls out via a reference to
| https://gwern.net/doc/statistics/2016-cook.pdf
|
| > A 2016 study of a sample of academic journals (not news
| publications) that set out to test Betteridge's law and
| Hinchliffe's rule (see below) found that few titles were posed
| as questions and of those, few were yes/no questions and they
| were more often answered "yes" in the body of the article
| rather than "no".
|
| Thankfully the underlying study doesn't pose a question, and
| the article we are discussing here is an academic hypothesis
| more than news.
| grondilu wrote:
| This is only anecdotal but I had heard about the benefits of
| fasting for brain performance, so I once tried fasting during a
| chess tournament. I fasted during the first six days of the
| tournament. My results were disappointing so I gave up and broke
| the fast on the seventh day.
| ralfd wrote:
| And did you play better?
|
| Fasting is different than ketonic diet though. With fasting you
| also lose constantly salts/minerals/vitamins. Especially salt
| deficit will make on tired.
| Topfi wrote:
| Did you do a full "water fast" during those six days or an
| intermittent approach and did you supplement electrolytes or
| take any other supplements?
|
| Genuinely interested, hope this doesn't read as the often
| common "you should have done this" reaction I commonly see when
| discussing certain diets or fasting.
| Aurornis wrote:
| If you've been regularly eating meals multiple times per day,
| it will take your body much longer to start functioning well
| during a fast.
|
| That said, I think the mental performance benefits of fasting
| have been excessively hyped. I wouldn't expect a chess player
| who has been fasting for multiple days to have better mental
| clarity. The body goes into energy preservation mode when food
| becomes scarce for days. That includes reduced energy
| expenditure for the brain.
| wslh wrote:
| Just yesterday I mentioned here that I train for (olympic)
| triathlons [1], and in the context of that and this thread I
| need to eat much more because I lose significant weight AND,
| I feel much more nervous if I fast, and I am not a nervous
| person.
|
| If I am not training I have the capacity to easily fast, not
| issue at all with fasting, not because I follow any
| intermittent fasting diet, just it is the way it is. Only
| sample=1 but I never observed any special enhanced cognition
| doing that while I observe an enhanced cognition function
| with very basic things like sleeping well.
|
| One more thing, I also find an improvement in cognition more
| with running than with swimming or biking. There are many
| studies about that but I give my personal experience not
| trying to give any conclusion for everyone. YMMV.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40533944
| mistrial9 wrote:
| great going and good on you for your health BUT endurance
| athletics represents only an important but tiny fraction of
| the lives of adults. General conversation around health,
| fitness and tuning is easily derailed by outliers and
| insufficient context!! office workers with weak backs and
| wrists end up arguing with 20+ hour a week gym people over
| some aspect of diet, and then they talk past each other..
| no problems with the comment but perspective and context
| are everything when talking health.
|
| Most people in good health can practice some version of
| fasting with some common sense. Zero people with good
| health can train for "olympic triathalons" starting next
| week.. so a peek (peak?) at the life of a triathlete is
| interesting and perhaps commendable, but really needs
| calling out as an outlier in a general discussion.
| wslh wrote:
| I was clear in my comment and in a reference to a
| previous comment that people are different. I never
| recommended that you should follow my way of life but I
| shared some aspects of my healthy life because I
| considered that I am not doing any exceptional thing,
| healthy human-wisely.
|
| > Zero people with good health can train for "olympic
| triathalons" starting next week..
|
| Completely wrong. There are many paths to train for an
| olympic triathlon that doesn't start running, biking, and
| swimming and having the correct mindset, endurance, and
| physical state. It is like saying that a normal kid
| cannot learn certain things at elementary school. I am
| not a professional but an amateur.
| Attummm wrote:
| Contrary to popular belief, fasting actually increases
| metabolism.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-36674-9
| layla5alive wrote:
| Temporarily, and then it is dramatically reduced.
|
| Jesus people, please stop with the unequivocal statements
| about equivocal/nuanced/complex things.
| Attummm wrote:
| Did you read the study? The study is about prolonged
| fasting, up to 58 hours.
|
| They observed that metabolism Increased during fasting.
|
| > During human fasting, metabolic markers, including
| butyrates, carnitines, and branched-chain amino acids,
| are upregulated for energy substitution through
| gluconeogenesis and use of stored lipids.
| shlant wrote:
| > Temporarily, and then it is dramatically reduced
|
| No change of diet will "dramatically reduce" metabolism.
| This is entirely unsubstantiated
| halfcat wrote:
| I recall someone, maybe Tim Ferriss, saying it typically takes
| him 6-8 weeks before he can do an equivalent workout on keto,
| and for high level endurance athletes much longer, like 12-18
| months of adaptation before they start seeing clear benefits
| over their previous non-keto baseline.
|
| So there's an adaptation period, which is why it's hard to do
| studies on this, because people starting keto cold turkey is
| likely to result in worse performance, mentally and physically,
| in the short term.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| High level endurance athletes are unlikely to be going full
| keto given the need for intra-race nutrition.
| Attummm wrote:
| The reason why that happened is quite simple. You are currently
| accustomed to being in a fed state, and it will take a while to
| adapt to a fasted state.
|
| Additionally, during the initial period, you may experience
| issues such as sugar withdrawal, which can lower your
| performance.
|
| Your body's cells will need to switch from predominantly using
| glucose to using ketones and fatty acids. This process can take
| weeks to months.
|
| The body is able to use both glucose and ketones; this is
| called being metabolically flexible. This flexibility can be
| achieved through intermittent fasting.
|
| So give it time.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I fast once or a twice a year for 3-6 days, and I practice "one
| meal a day" most of the year.
|
| My first fast was difficult, I did not supplement with
| electrolytes, slept too much and basically spent the duration
| watching series and feeling awful.
|
| It is much better to go outside, work and try to follow your
| regular habits.
|
| Electrolytes supplements are a must, and also some paracetamol
| during the first few days to reduce the inconvenience of your
| brain switching from glucose to ketones.
|
| Fasting is easier the more you do it, partly because of
| calibrated expectations and less fear but I also think that the
| body simply adapts.
|
| The only difficult day is the first one, for me.
|
| The mental clarity thing is not a boost, you won't gain IQ
| points or intellectual stamina, more like slightly enhanced
| mood and more stable/regulated mental performance.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| Paracetamol is an anticholinergic isn't it? It's bad for your
| brain and its usage is associated with dementia.
| toxik wrote:
| Are you really suggesting paracetamol causes dementia?
| jodleif wrote:
| Citation needed
| bobmcnamara wrote:
| "Regular use of paracetamol, but not ibuprofen, was
| associated with a significantly higher risk of new-onset
| dementia in the old population, regardless of genetic
| risks of dementia."
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37633120/
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Paracetamol is the default painkiller for most people, I
| would suspect that regular use means some kind of
| inflammation.
|
| I would not find surprising that chronic headache could
| be correlated with risk of dementia.
| jprival wrote:
| > Paracetamol is an anticholinergic isn't it?
|
| No, per https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.
| 1111/j.15...
|
| Can't say whether it's good for your brain otherwise.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| Supposedly chess layers burn excessive calories playing. From
| one popular culture article[0] ...The six-game
| championship in 2004 left Rustam Kasimdzhanov 17 pounds
| lighter. And in 2018, one company tracking the heart rate of
| grandmaster Mikhail Antipov concluded that he had burned 560
| calories in just two hours. Sitting still. Playing chess. (An
| average-sized person would need two hours on a treadmill to
| break 500.) Last week, ESPN looked more closely into the
| toll the stationary sport takes on the body. ESPN spoke with
| Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford University researcher who studies
| primates. Sapolsky explained that some chess players respond to
| the game like any elite athlete, burning upwards of 6,000
| calories a day during tournaments, due to tripled breathing
| rates, elevated blood pressure, and muscle contractions. That
| means during tournaments they can lose two pounds each day.
|
| I have done several fasts, and I am quite dubious of the
| supposed mental improvements. My brain has spent 99%+ of its
| existence no more than 12 hours away from a steady supply of
| glucose. I personally feel physically and mentally sluggish.
| While probably erring much on the side of caution, I avoid
| driving during a 5+ day fast because I feel my reaction speed
| is diminished.
|
| Furthermore, the brain is the single most energetically
| expensive organ in the body. If there were a shortcut metabolic
| pathway, it seems like it would have been exploited long ago.
|
| [0] https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a29144951/chess-
| players-c...
| samatman wrote:
| Ketosis isn't a shortcut, it's a critical part of the human
| organism.
|
| The brain has to run on something, and we store very little
| glycogen. It wasn't uncommon in the ancestral environment for
| food to be entirely unavailable, or for the only calories to
| be in the form of meat, which itself has little glycogen.
|
| So there's a secondary pathway to account for those
| conditions. A hand-waving argument could be made that in
| circumstances where there are no calories, it is the _most_
| important time for the brain to function well. Glucose is the
| cheapest, metabolically, that doesn 't automatically mean
| that it's the best.
|
| The reaction someone has to a fast, or to a diet which
| induces ketosis, is fairly personal. I don't think there are
| broad sweeping conclusions we can draw here.
|
| My n=1 is that after two days of a fast, I feel pretty sharp.
| Electrolytes are indeed essential to this; in this context
| salt is far and away the most important, for whatever reason.
| I would expect the YMMV factor to dominate though.
| QuantumGood wrote:
| I've played chess in the U.S. Open, NY Open, World Open in
| the 1980's (finished in the money in 2 out of 3). Really
| leaves you starving after playing for hours.
| srik wrote:
| Did you take your electrolytes? If you don't supplement on
| Magnesium/Potassium/Sodium you'll have to deal with severely
| unpleasant effects on any water fast that spans beyond 2-3
| days.
| grondilu wrote:
| No, I didn't take any electrolyte, as it seems artificial to
| me.
| radford-neal wrote:
| One hears stories of people with dementia having a day or two of
| mental clarity just before they die. Could this explain that?
| Perhaps their bodily processes are failing so much that normal
| glucose production is impaired, leading to ketones being produced
| instead, and temporary clarity before the failures lead to
| death...
| mathgeek wrote:
| Possible, but we'd need more research on Terminal Lucidity at
| this point in time: https://alz-
| journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.100...
| agumonkey wrote:
| I wish i could read about this 'honeymoon' effect, it's so
| strange.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Does anyone else get the sense that health research is flawed
| because the scientific process struggles to be holistic e.g.
| changing multiple variables at the same time is not commonplace
| or even really realistic?
|
| Sometimes I read these studies and it feels a bit like someone
| reverse engineering a car without knowing what a car is supposed
| to do. Like - if you don't use oil, the engine is preserved quite
| well, unless you rotate the wheels, then it gets ruined, but only
| if the clutch is engaged. But then we do a study, we hold the
| clutch position constant, say it's disengaged, and then rotate
| the wheels at different speeds, and find that it doesn't make a
| difference, and publish that, and then it makes its' way into
| general understanding that you don't need to use engine oil.
|
| People seem to want to seperate the effects of diet, exercise,
| social interaction, etc, but I don't think this is possible in a
| complex system like a human being. They all need to be balanced.
| illuminant wrote:
| Yes. "Science has just discovered processed foods and refined
| sugars are bad for you!"
|
| Wisdom and insight is something more than scientific credulity.
|
| Potential underlies state. State does not ultimately underlie
| potential.
| intended wrote:
| This is so incredibly strange - I just connected with someone who
| had disappeared for a while, and they were dealing with mental
| health challenges. They were facing challenges, and they were
| trying their damndest to connect with people working on Metabolic
| Psychiatry.
|
| I did a cursory read on whatever most recent credible sources
| existed, and found that... it wasn't a fad.
|
| I hope I'm largely correct but:
|
| The underlying work was talking about something else entirely -
| in essence a link between cardiovascular / metabolic health,
| mental health and diet.
|
| Switching to a low carb diet has helped reduce those metabolic
| factors, which allowed for a reduced dose of medication in
| conditions such as ADD, Bipolar disorder, depression.
|
| Having never heard of this before, it smacked 100% of being some
| fad. But it looks like (diet + health) = better (cardio /
| energy).
|
| Yes - the conversation did eventually go to Psych is bad, and
| doctors only want to medicate, and mitochondria misfiring.
| adaptbrian wrote:
| That's me as well, getting into ketosis has absolutely changed
| my life for the better.
| QuantumGood wrote:
| I started trying fasting in the 1980's, and later keto. I've
| been watching people try it for a very long time. Almost
| everyone who tries keto successfully, says something akin to "I
| never realized how poorly my brain was working!" Definitely
| life changing for me (in combination with S-Acetyl Glutathione)
| AndyNemmity wrote:
| Same for me, fasting or low carb, whatever keeps you in ketosis
| makes my memory sharper, my brain function better, and is for
| me at least, non optional for living a productive life.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| Yeast is what is targets. I know a psychiactric dr who found
| promose in feeding patients refined coconut oil. The craprylic
| acid is what makes up the triglicerides in it. Those kill yeast.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-06-01 23:02 UTC)