Carbs you can produce on keto

(Bob M) #1

Here is a “substack” post about how many carbs we can produce while on keto.

A few things I thought were interesting:

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I don’t want to put too much here, but the entire post (not long) is interesting. This is from “The UK carnivore”, but I don’t see a lot of cited references. This does seem to agree with my experience, though, as I tried to make my blood sugar go up by eating a lot of protein, and I couldn’t tell that it did. In fact, if I eat near zero carbs, I could show you a CGM graph, and you couldn’t tell when I ate (I could, only because I eat at about 10 am and 6:30-7pm).

(Chuck) #2

I eat a moderately amount of carbs and I fast 16 hours a day. I occasionally check my ketone level and I am constantly at a moderate level of ketosis. I am not a diabetic and in fact I deal with low blood sugar issues from time to time. We are all individuals and we all react differently to carbs, proteins, and fats.

(Bob M) #3

I do think that it’s possible that 8% value could be variable, based on individuals. (And, I theorize, the amount of exercise someone is doing could be a factor.)

But in 2017, I bought a CGM and tested eating very high protein, because many people back then said that “eating high protein was like eating a candy bar”. I tested 160+ grams of protein in single meals, with no blood sugar response I could see.

But he’s reacting to someone – today – who apparently believes keto folk can’t make enough carbs to fuel themselves. Ludicrous, but these incorrect ideas just keep going.

(Joey) #4

Perhaps a point worth noting: one’s body doesn’t produce carbs.
It circulates glucose sourced through dietary intake - both current and past.

(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #5

Being a UK Carnivore myself I’ve obviously looked at that site, and Stephen Thomas does some good content, often linking up with Kent Carnivore … we’ve all got to make a living but I’m never sure about Low carb websites trying to be so commercial. Maybe I’m wrong

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #6

Back when gluconeogenesis was not so well understood, the fear of eating too much protein became ingrained. Ben Bikman even did a talk at Low Carb Breckenridge about his research, and why we don’t need to fear protein.

I find it interesting that, left to its own devices, the body maintains only about 5 mg of glucose in circulation. Most of that is made in the liver from amino acids, and the body uses the nitrogen from deaminating the amino acids to help regulate blood pressure (which is why hypertension can become a problem on a high-glucose diet). As Peter Ballerstedt often mentions, the body cannot use nitrogen from any other source than amino acids, so it’s an elegant idea that the deaminated amino acids get turned into glucose and fatty acids that the body can use.

(Alec) #7

I don’t think they have any idea how much gluconeogenesis is possible. They are just guessing.

(Bean) #8

I’m not familiar with him. Does he cite any particular studies?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

The studies on which the RDA of protein is based show that the average nitrogen loss is the equivalent of 0.6 g of protein per kilogram of body mass per day. From there you could calculate an upper limit to the amount of glucose formed, based on the assumption that every single deaminated amino acid was glucogenic and nary a one was lipogenic.

However, people’s daily nitrogen needs, as plotted in the study I read, are all over the graph. The implication, then, is that some people could potentially produce more glucose , whereas others would have a much lower limit. Presumably.

However, I don’t see much point in stressing about it, however, since gluconeogenesis is a tightly-regulated process and occurs only in the absence of hyperglycaemia and hyperinsulinaemia. (It is unnecessary if there is too much glucose in the diet.) Moreover, the liver is perfectly capable of storing glucose as glycogen for the purpose of sharing with the muscles at need. (Liver glycogen can be shared, whereas glycogen formed in a muscle can be used only within that muscle.)

At any rate, we have a choice: (a) trust that 2,000,000 years of evolution have refined the mechanism; or (b) believe that EXCESS PROTEIN CONSUMED TURNS TO CAKE IN YOUR LIVER!!! :scream::scream::scream: I know which choice I prefer.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #10

Dr. Ballerstedt is a forage agronomist. Search YouTube for his “meet your herdmates” podcasts. (He calls people who think along the same lines the “ruminati.”) From there, you’ll find his lectures. The lecture slides cite the relevant studies.

Cheesy humour warning: Peter often goes by the moniker, “Don Pedro, the Sod-father.” 'Nuff said.

(Bob M) #11

I think you’re most likely correct. I think it might depend on genetics (could some people produce more / or less?), how much exercise you’re doing (you have to replace glycogen somehow), etc. I’ve seen Type 1 diabetics who have to account for an increase in blood sugar due to a delayed rise after eating higher protein. I have no idea what causes that, though. But that shows that your body also factors into it, and maybe some of us that have damaged livers are different?

I think the body is so complex that it’s hard to have a single rule for anything, though I think the idea that you eat protein and blood sugar goes up tremendously is going to be wrong for the vast majority of keto folks.

And I still have no idea why I have morning blood sugar over 100. Why? What does my body want me to do with it? (Though I do work out in the morning, so maybe that’s one reason? Could my body figure this out, though?)

(Alec) #12

Bob
I think the main variable that nobody has properly studied is how long someone has been zero carb. If you have eaten zero carb for a decade and you regularly do long bouts of exercise, you have trained your body over a long period of time to efficiently create whatever glucose is required.

I am sure there is some kind of theoretical limit on glucose creation in the human body, but nobody has yet to get close to studying that properly. We are at a very early stage of research on metabolism under zero carb diets.

Society’s love affair with eating carbs and plants is going to subside at some point, because the health realities of eating that way is becoming clear. It will take some time, but it will happen. There are bricks in the wall being dislodged. The wall is still there, but it is starting to crumble.

(B Creighton) #13

The protein to carb conversion is quite poor. That is why there is such a thing as rabbit starvation. Wild rabbit is usually quite lean, and without the fat, people can end up starving because it takes too much energy to convert the protein into the carbs the body needs. Fat is a much better conversion by combining the glycerine branches to make glucose, and burning the fatty acids. In short I really doubt there is hardly any protein to carb conversion unless one is starving. Before doing that the body is going to use 1) glycogen and then 2) fat.

(Bob M) #14

Here’s more from the same author:

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #15

One practical limit is that the liver can only make as much glucose as we consume in glucogenic amino acids. But that is not likely, because for one thing, there would be a lot of ammonia to dispose of, and too much ammonia in the system is toxic. For another, most of the amino acids we eat (as protein) are required for building new tissues.

I say that daily intake is the limit here, because the labile pool of amino acids is very small; the body has no real way to store amino acids. Normally, this is not a problem; amino acids can be salvaged from proteins that have lived their alloted span, and those amino acids can then be reassembled into new proteins. This is the process known as autophagy.

I suspect that anyone who tests all this will find that in athletes, the liver makes extra glucose and stores it as glycogen, for quick sharing with the muscles. (The muscles can make their own glycogen, too, but this is less likely in a ketogenic metabolic milieu.) But the body keeps the amount of glucose circulating in the blood stream around 5 mg, except when there is need, or when we are flooding our blood with glucose because we are eating too much carbohydrate.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #16

Except that the body also has a daily need for nitrogen, primarily to use in lowering blood pressure. That nitrogen can come only from the amino acids (proteins) we eat; we cannot make use of the nitrogen in the atmosphere. So there will always be a certain amount of deamination going on in the liver, unless the insulin level is high enough to prevent gluconeogenesis.

Also bear in mind that Phinney and Volek’s research suggest that the skeletal muscles, once fat-adapted, have an active preference for fatty acids over glucose and even ketones. The hypothesis is that this saves the glucose and ketones for organs (such as the brain) that really need them.