Thursday, January 8, 2015

upside-down world, upside-down goals

Dr. Feinman writes, "Back in the adipocyte (fat cell), the level of ketonemia (ketone bodies in the blood) is sensed by receptors.  When the concentration is high, the ketone bodies turn off their own synthesis, that is, they inhibit lipolysis."  "In addition to this direct effect, ketone bodies stimulate insulin from the pancreas.  The effect is to feed back to inhibit lipolysis."

If he's got his biochemistry right (as I would assume), and interpreting things correctly, THE LAST THING A LOW-CARB DIETER SHOULD DO IS SUPPLEMENT MCT OR KETONE SALTS!

Do his observations come from starvation studies?  Are they designed to slow lipolysis to a necessary minimum in times of famine? 

Do they even apply, when adequate calories are consumed -- I would assume they still do, but if "common sense" were the rule in nutrition, then CICO would be "true" too.

In any case, this implies to me that AIMING for big numbers or dark colors on your ketone-measurement of choice is a mistake -- all you're doing by increasing ketone concentration with ketogenic substances is inhibit the breakdown of body fat for use in energy production.  (Of course, this does not apply if your goal with ketosis is CNS therapy.)

Going back to Dr. Atkins' goal of "being in ketosis" -- the purpose is to show the weight-loss dieter that s/he IS burning body fat for fuel, and no longer running on glucose.  Showing ketonuria (or ketonemia) is also a proxy that fasting insulin is within healthy bounds.

Anything beyond Atkins' ketone-goal is irrelevant ... IF your goal is fat-weight loss ... I think. 

12 comments:

  1. My first thought is, this mechanism prevents ketoacidosis in normal metabolism. FFAs also inhibit lipolysis independent of insulin. It's a safety feature.
    MCT are highly thermogenic and rats fed diets very high in MCTs can double calorie intake- across the board - without weight gain.
    That's Wistar rats, other rats, like people, may vary.

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    1. thanks, George! your input is always helpful!

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  2. The highest ketone levels I ever had were during fat fasts. The strips were dark purple. I suppose inhibiting burning of fat and releasing insulin is to hold on to fat (energy stores) and increase appetite. (I can tell you I was hungry on those fat fasts, except when I had a cold.)

    Scarfing down fat bombs *beyond hunger* is, on its face, a bad idea if you're trying to lose weight. Even Sam Feltham, a young, thin guy, didn't lose weight doing this. And as usual, a lot of people have the cart before the horse. As you said, ketones form by the burning of fat. They're a *sign* that you're burning fat. Ingesting ketones to try to burn more fat is like throwing ashes on the fire to warm up your house.

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    1. i suspect that eating beyond hunger for almost ANY reason is ridiculous -- one of the best effects of a LC diet is normalizing appetite so we can "hear" our bodies say "stop eating"....

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  3. That explains my weight gain on a ketogenic diet...not so much on VLC...Dr. Feinman, is a great read! Thanks..

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    1. yeah, when i try to eat more fat than comes with very-fatty meat, i stall. Fat-bombs are great when i'm still feeling hungry after a reasonable dinner, but frequent use doesn't help me a bit.

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    2. Fat bombs are good for fat fasts. I use it when travel and have to be sure to avoid a migraine associated with a long flight.

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    3. to tell you the truth, most of the time when I feel a need to fast, I just FAST and rarely even use cream in my coffee. :-) I use the fat-fast recipes in Dana's book as side- or main-dishes -- her stuffed mushrooms, creamed spinach, noodle dishes are great, and some of her soups are lunch for me.

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    4. I am an incurable epicure , having pure fasts will make me miserable. I use mainly recipes from my head, like pate, frozen bacon (I don't use much fried one - too strong flavor) and chilled cheese/butter/herbs rolls.

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  4. When I first saw the three words 'upside down world' I thought too true, The world at the moment is completely upside down ...... just look at the news from around the world.

    So on to a more positive note. To me 2015 and continuing to live the LCHF lifestyle does make perfect sense.

    Onwards and Upwards = hope the weekend is going well for you.

    All the best Jan

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    1. hope your weekend is proving to be a great beginning of 2015, too! :-D vive la vie low-carb!

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  5. Great explanation Lori - today during an intermittent fast/VLC day I've watched my pee pee stix go from light pink to medium purple (moderate) even though "technically" they may be expired... Think I bought 'em in Aug - some say 90 d, others say 150!

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