> Ketosis looks like a human-specific adaptation to carbohydrate shortage. That makes it relatively recent in evolutionary terms, and so I'm reluctant to claim that it's a good idea to do it long term.
Breast milk is ketogenic so it seems fairly likely that we're quite adapted to it?
> You get loads of extra energy as a result, and it seems to be a panacea for various sorts of mental disorders.
Chris Palmer's theory on this is that basically the brain is the canary in the mine when it comes to metabolic disfunction. When your glucose metabolism gets screwed up ketosis provides an alternate way to get energy to the brain and so mental heath issues resolve quickly. Which is basically what you implied ...
> I've tried ketosis myself for several two-week periods, and after an initial couple of days of 'keto flu' it always makes me feel great. Boundless physical and mental energy, but it always feels a bit 'thin', somehow.
Two weeks isn't really enough to fat adapt. It took me four months to be able to eat normal amounts of fat on carnivore and I'm still fat adapting after four years. But most people adapt faster than me. A month is considered the minimum time for people to do basic keto/no-fibre adaptation on carnivore. Adapting to the point where sports performance isn't impacted takes longer, but there's plenty of people who've reported improved performance after a few months.
> Chris Palmer's theory on this is that basically the brain is the canary in the mine when it comes to metabolic disfunction. When your glucose metabolism gets screwed up ketosis provides an alternate way to get energy to the brain and so mental heath issues resolve quickly. Which is basically what you implied ...
That is my theory too. I shall seek out this Chris Palmer and see what he has to say. Thank you!
Agreed, but there's no way to adapt round not having any stored glycogen. I'll believe in keto athletes when they start winning things. It might be ok for 100m sprints or ultra-marathons?
PUFA-free athletes, on the other hand, should do very well according to me. I should look. Thanks again.
I don't think I've ever seen an academic talk with adverts embedded before. Very few adverts ever get through my defenses so well done them! There's a certain innocent joy about American commercialism.
That was fascinating, thanks! It makes sense that if there was a way to turn ketones into glycogen you'd do it. At that point I can believe 'Properly adapted to lipovory' rather than 'emergency backup system for carb shortages'.
It does make the water-weight loss and gain on entry and exit from ketosis look strange though?
It would be amazing if we had a perfectly adapted still-functional hunter-gatherer keto metabolism alongside more recent farming adjustments and could switch between the two.
I'd be interested to see comparisons between keto-guys, carb-guys, no-PUFA guys and SAD guys in athletics. I'd guess no-PUFA swamp wins in all medium-endurance sports, but this talk makes me think maybe no-PUFA keto might do well too.
How about the potato diet when people are eating under maintenance, which seems fairly easy to do without cravings. The starch pathway seems to act differently and your under maintenance so you start burning your bodily PUFA filled fat too.
Potato diet seems to have about the right amount of protein in it, the Irish pretty much lived on potatoes once upon a time and seemed to do fine.
So if you do the potato hack you're getting no-PUFAs, minimal protein and carbosis all at the same time. I'm not surprised it seems to work.
I did try eating lots of baked potatoes once and gave myself solanine poisoning. I'll probably give it another go next winter only next time take the damned skins off.
Starch is a bit funny, there are intricacies with digesting it, but once it gets into your bloodstream it should be just glucose I think, unless your stomach bacteria have turned it into short-chain saturated fats!
There is a difference is the glycemic index rate and probably all the other things you mentioned. The different pathway probably has all sorts of knock on effects even if it gets converted to glucose eventually. You've probably seen this video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf4b2qM3-Js
I had a similar solanine issue (not blood tested) and I solved it by peeling all the potatoes. Solanine has a more than 24 hour clear out time in the body, so you can get a build up effect if you only eat potatoes.
IMO I think that is actually not bad advice in the context of the amount people eat. There is iodine in the skin, but none in the flesh for example. It just fails when you overload the system that can deal with that specific toxin. Probably a major reason why most restrictive diets fail or have problems, they overload some system or another in an organism that was designed to deal with a diversity of toxins / defense chemicals under certain levels.
Thanks for the summary!
> Ketosis looks like a human-specific adaptation to carbohydrate shortage. That makes it relatively recent in evolutionary terms, and so I'm reluctant to claim that it's a good idea to do it long term.
Breast milk is ketogenic so it seems fairly likely that we're quite adapted to it?
> You get loads of extra energy as a result, and it seems to be a panacea for various sorts of mental disorders.
Chris Palmer's theory on this is that basically the brain is the canary in the mine when it comes to metabolic disfunction. When your glucose metabolism gets screwed up ketosis provides an alternate way to get energy to the brain and so mental heath issues resolve quickly. Which is basically what you implied ...
> I've tried ketosis myself for several two-week periods, and after an initial couple of days of 'keto flu' it always makes me feel great. Boundless physical and mental energy, but it always feels a bit 'thin', somehow.
Two weeks isn't really enough to fat adapt. It took me four months to be able to eat normal amounts of fat on carnivore and I'm still fat adapting after four years. But most people adapt faster than me. A month is considered the minimum time for people to do basic keto/no-fibre adaptation on carnivore. Adapting to the point where sports performance isn't impacted takes longer, but there's plenty of people who've reported improved performance after a few months.
> Chris Palmer's theory on this is that basically the brain is the canary in the mine when it comes to metabolic disfunction. When your glucose metabolism gets screwed up ketosis provides an alternate way to get energy to the brain and so mental heath issues resolve quickly. Which is basically what you implied ...
That is my theory too. I shall seek out this Chris Palmer and see what he has to say. Thank you!
https://www.chrispalmermd.com/
He did a good, short talk at Low Carb Denver which lays out his basic theory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r3WVWOn28E
Enjoyed that, thanks! A passionate man.
Can there any good thing come out of Psychiatry?
> Two weeks isn't really enough to fat adapt.
Agreed, but there's no way to adapt round not having any stored glycogen. I'll believe in keto athletes when they start winning things. It might be ok for 100m sprints or ultra-marathons?
PUFA-free athletes, on the other hand, should do very well according to me. I should look. Thanks again.
You might want to take a look at the presentation of Jeff Volek 'Exploring the Keto-Adapted Phenotype: Focus on Muscle'
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg-vS04JjIY&t=1567s
I am not sure your thoughts on 'not having glycogen stores' is correct.
I don't think I've ever seen an academic talk with adverts embedded before. Very few adverts ever get through my defenses so well done them! There's a certain innocent joy about American commercialism.
That was fascinating, thanks! It makes sense that if there was a way to turn ketones into glycogen you'd do it. At that point I can believe 'Properly adapted to lipovory' rather than 'emergency backup system for carb shortages'.
It does make the water-weight loss and gain on entry and exit from ketosis look strange though?
It would be amazing if we had a perfectly adapted still-functional hunter-gatherer keto metabolism alongside more recent farming adjustments and could switch between the two.
I'd be interested to see comparisons between keto-guys, carb-guys, no-PUFA guys and SAD guys in athletics. I'd guess no-PUFA swamp wins in all medium-endurance sports, but this talk makes me think maybe no-PUFA keto might do well too.
Tom Brady didn't eat canola oil or fried foods and did pretty well: https://www.eatthis.com/foods-tom-brady-never-eats/
Thank you for the post!
> didn't eat canola oil or fried foods
Very wise!
> Breast milk is ketogenic
Cow's milk has got a fair bit of lactose in it. Breasts, alas, have no nutritional labels, but I can't imagine it's much different?
I think I'm repeating Amber O'Hearn, will try and find a source to cite.
The best thing would be not needing psychiatry! 🤣
How about the potato diet when people are eating under maintenance, which seems fairly easy to do without cravings. The starch pathway seems to act differently and your under maintenance so you start burning your bodily PUFA filled fat too.
Potato diet seems to have about the right amount of protein in it, the Irish pretty much lived on potatoes once upon a time and seemed to do fine.
So if you do the potato hack you're getting no-PUFAs, minimal protein and carbosis all at the same time. I'm not surprised it seems to work.
I did try eating lots of baked potatoes once and gave myself solanine poisoning. I'll probably give it another go next winter only next time take the damned skins off.
Starch is a bit funny, there are intricacies with digesting it, but once it gets into your bloodstream it should be just glucose I think, unless your stomach bacteria have turned it into short-chain saturated fats!
There is a difference is the glycemic index rate and probably all the other things you mentioned. The different pathway probably has all sorts of knock on effects even if it gets converted to glucose eventually. You've probably seen this video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf4b2qM3-Js
I had a similar solanine issue (not blood tested) and I solved it by peeling all the potatoes. Solanine has a more than 24 hour clear out time in the body, so you can get a build up effect if you only eat potatoes.
I'm doing it again to gather data, you can read more about it here: https://x.com/meta_boli/status/1823850895920259483
> I had a similar solanine issue
Eat the skins, they say. Good for you, they say. Nutrients.
Morons.
IMO I think that is actually not bad advice in the context of the amount people eat. There is iodine in the skin, but none in the flesh for example. It just fails when you overload the system that can deal with that specific toxin. Probably a major reason why most restrictive diets fail or have problems, they overload some system or another in an organism that was designed to deal with a diversity of toxins / defense chemicals under certain levels.