A carnivorous diet (meat only, zero carbs) would accomplish the same without the pharmacological drawback. Been on the diet for over a year and have never felt better in my life.
Have you ever checked your blood sugar on a zero carb diet? It’s far from zero.
This medication is intended to block glucose transport to cancer cells while not blocking to non-cancer cells. Even if a zero carb diet would be a good idea for a cancer patient in general, there is absolutely no chance that a zero carb diet would be equivalent to the intended mechanism of this medication because people with a zero carb diet still have plenty of glucose.
No, it wouldn't. Your brain needs glucose to survive and your body will manufacture it if it's not present. If you actually were able to accomplish what you're saying, you'd be braindead.
Again, the important thing is ATP, and you can get it from either glucose or ketone bodies:
> In fact, the late George Cahill did an experiment many years ago (probably would never get IRB approval to do such an experiment today) to demonstrate how ketones can offset glucose in the brain. Subjects with very high levels of B-OHB (about 5-7 mM) were injected with insulin until glucose levels reached 1 mM (about 19 mg/dL)! A normal person would fall into a coma at glucose levels below about 40 mg/dL and die by the time blood glucose reached 1 mM. These subjects were completely asymptomatic and 100% neurologically functional.
no, you're both oversimplifying. the brain needs some glucose to sustain itself, a little bit, according to present day research. yes, it can principally function on ketones but not /exclusively/.
it is not controversial that the brain can survive long periods of time on principally ketones, but what has not yet been proven (for obvious ethical reasons) is whether or not the brain can sustain itself with absolutely no glucose whatsoever.
again, the ratios are key. i'm not contesting that ketones can be used as the principal fuel source, just that "the important thing is ATP" because the brain needs some glucose.
Yes. Red blood cells literally can only eat glucose. Without it you would be super dead.
I find it amusingly absurd how so many people here seem convinced that our primary food source is somehow a poison. People with 0 carbs in their blood are colloquially known as 'dead'.
I wonder if people even know what ketone bodies are... They are a downstream product of glucose processing(also downstream of fats - the inputs are different but the outputs are identical in a few ways), acetyl-coA, stuck together for bloodstream transport with the coenzyme temporarily removed.
Glucose is definitely food for humans, I think what the discussions here and more generally in nutrition are about lately is where it should come from. Carbs are the only nutrient with a minimum daily intake of zero. Carbs are optional, as to your point, your liver will synthesize all you need to exist or you would be dead. What that process doesn’t come with as much of is a direct spike in insulin and insulin has a lot of downstream effects.
I've been on Keto for almost two years and recently had someone adamantly scold me about how bad it is for my brain. My n=1 suggests otherwise. Things like focus and mood are all significantly better than they were before. Physical and mental stamina have both increased. I went from an "Obese" body fat percentage to "Athletic" in six months.
But still, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and sincerely asked him, and ask others here, "Please provide me with studies that show that it's 'horrible for the brain'." I don't mean that to be snarky. I've looked and haven't been able to find the studies. Maybe I've been looking in the wrong places and I would love to read the studies* that show how bad it is.
Towards the end of the conversation with this guy I found it amusing that he stopped chiding me long enough to ask, "So... wait, what is Keto?"
* Peer-reviewed, scientifically rigorous studies only please.
Maybe your brain function is sufficiently impaired that you can't find the studies?
Seriously, I had an accident in March that necessitated a brain operation and left me in the hospital for over a month. The most surprising after-effect is that I can't always predict or recognize the symptoms arising from that.
My dad had a brain operation a few years ago. His recovery has been somewhat slow and wasn't always smooth but it also wasn't as bad as I think we all expected. Brains are mysterious organs. I wish you all the best in your recovery.
> things like focus and mood are all significantly better then before...
Was your keto diet the only change in your life? Going from obese to athletic in 6 months probably includes some other good habits like going to gym/physical activity and good sleep etc. So maybe your change in a lifestyle helped you improve you mood and focus, not necessarily the keto diet in particular?
I did start working out more. I had to in order to work off the excess energy I suddenly had. But I wasn’t completely sedentary prior to starting Keto. I trained for and ran 5K’s but always felt so sluggish both physically and mentally. So while I’ll grant that the mental gains are influenced by my physical activity, it’s clear to me that the lions share of it comes from my nutritional changes. That was the main reason for starting Keto in the first place; I felt my mental acuity dramatically decreasing and nothing else I was doing seemed to help. The weight loss was icing in the cake, no pun intended.
