Dr Boz Calculates levels of autophagy using blood sugar/blood ketones ratio

[Happyheart]

Herbs last post was in May. I’m not sure he’s around anymore.

[Paulene]

Ah well, was worth a shot.

[Karim_Wassef]

I did find that fasting helped me lose some of my loose skin. Autophagy does work, but it’s very slow.

[Janie]

Agreed. Same here. Works, but very slow. And the loose skin that started shrinking was from long before keto and didn’t start losing it until i started to fo 3-day fasts. So for me, keto alone did nothing for loose skin.

[Paulene]

Thanks for the responses @Karim_Wassef and @Janie.
Karim, did you do extended fasts (around 3 days) as well?

[Karim_Wassef]

my fasts vary from a day to 19 days.

This thread captures last year’s 19 day fast and this year’s 19 day fast with G, K, and GKI

Karim's Extended Fast Tracker - come along for the ride

Day 22 (19 days fasting and 3 days refeed): [image] So the water and waste change in the beginning is completely reversed. I wasn’t counting it in my math but we’ll see if my body is done or if there’s more to go. The fibrous nature of the food I’m eating doesn’t help. Here was last night’s meal with all indulgences included (18g of carbs): [image] Still with a metabolism around 2200 and intake at 1300, the 18g of carbs (I had miscounted by 1 before ) caused massive water retention,…

[Paulene]

Thanks for that, Karim. I’m hoping to get back inot EF as soon as my rash disappears - fasting makes it much worse.

[Karim_Wassef]

Do you know why fasting makes it worse?

[Paulene]

Not really - I’m looking into at present. I initially though the rash was a keto rash, even though it is not in the usual location on the trunk (mine is on my shins), so I thought the increase ketones from fasting may have been aggravating it. However, I have just finished 2 weeks back on a high carb diet, which usually quickly fixes a keto rash, and the rash is still present.
Another option I am exploring is oxalate dumping causing the rash, and I think fasting may also cause this.
There is quite a bit of information about gut biome and rashes as well. I think I have a healthy gut biome - I have not intestinal or digestion problems, I haven’t had antibiotics in about 15 years, my diet has never been very SAD, and I take probiotics every now and again (e.g., yakult or a probiotic yoghurt). The only time I had any signs of candida was when I was pregnant, last time almost 20 years ago.
This article on fasting references histamines and gut biome in fasting but antihistamines have made no difference to the rash. However, the article also mentioned a thing called Substance P, which I have never heard of before. So I’m currently looking into that.
I’m leaning towards it being an oxalate-related rash. One of the remedies is to increase calcium so I started taking a calcium supplement last weeks, and there has been some improvement, but it is not dramatically improved. I have also been applying topical cortisol cream for a few weeks, with varying results.
This week I am back on keto so I’ll see if it gets worse again.

[Ricardo_Wheelock]

Guys, I am bit worried, I need some help/advice:
I started what I expected to be a 7 day fast. But my sugar level where too low from the start, So at 60 hours I felt some pain in my kidneys and dec

ided too look what normal sugar levels should look like, I got so worried about Hypoglycemia that I decided to stop immediately, I just had some watermelon, very little, and I am sharing my numbers expecting someone to chime in. As you can see I got into what is known as deep autophagy level quite fast but those sugar numbers got me really worried. I have never been diabetic or had any diabetes problems.

[Keto6468]

I’m certainly not a doctor but it seems like maybe you should do shorter fasts

[Karim_Wassef]

I can function just fine at 35G and 5K… the low glucose at low ketones are the concern: 42G and 0.7K…

If ketones are high enough, the need for glucose drops to the basic essentials - red blood cells and some nervous system/brain function.

With low ketones, that looks off… I would get a second meter (or borrow from a friend) to confirm that yours is accurate.

I would stop a fast if you feel pain. Kidney pain may be the result of dehydration so make sure you’re taking enough salt and water (actually I take a range of minerals when I do extended fasts). My longest fast was 19 days and I usually get to that deep autophagy after the first week.

That’s just my n=1… I’m not a medical doctor, just a personal experimenter.

[Ricardo_Wheelock]

thank you Karim, really useful stuff!

[Karim_Wassef]

Glad to help. I’m a dataphile myself so I track almost everything I can to make sense of things…

Karim's Extended Fast Tracker - come along for the ride

Day 10 final - PSK [image] Weight loss still progressing but it has a larger component from muscle mass too… and that’s while consuming a lot of protein. My GKI has been steadily increasing and is in the 3-4 range now… so low level ketosis with Glucose in the high 80s and ketones in the low 1.0s… I’m getting sun, sauna and deadlifting outside every day now.

[gstlynx]

Most serious research Doctors qualify every statement about autophagy in humans with something like, “We don’t know, but in animals…” Having said that I think Dr. Boz’s metric is useful, when viewed in a state of protein restriction/denial.
Others have already noted this but I think it bears repeating:
The 2 sensor pathways that we know how to manipulate for autophagy are AMPK and mTOR. Ketosis activates AMPK. Limit the amino acid pool, specifically leucine and 2 others that activate mTOR. So if one is restricting/denying protein intake that should limit mTOR activation.
Those 2 together SHOULD stimulate autophagy in humans, I believe it does watching my age spots fade, scars diminish, also loose skin and wrinkles from being fat disappear.
Having said all that, I am so lean now that I will only do fat fasting in the future. On day 5/7 of a well hydrated adequate electrolyte fast I was absolutely drained, drank some MCT and got on with it knowing I didn’t really mess with the autophagy promoting pathways too much.
I believe/hope that the animal data will be proven to extend to humans.

[Janie]

I have seen my age spots flake off after fasting so I am a believer

[Karim_Wassef]

My conclusion is a little different. I’m 47 and my concern isn’t just with losing fat or recycling bad lean tissue with autophagy. I am also very much interested in building up a base of new lean muscle mass.

I think mTOR is much maligned but it’s just as important as AMPK for longevity. The difference is whether it’s chronically high or intermittently high.

My goal is to maximize both by being in autophagy most of the time but spiking AMPK with protein and heavy weightlifting to increase muscle hypertrophy locally… then get back into autophagy. If I can do this in a state of higher ketones, then I also get the lean mass preservation mechanisms…

It’s tricky, so I try extended multi-week fasts, protein sparing keto/fast, keto, cyclic fasting, etc…

Karim's Extended Fast Tracker - come along for the ride

Keto - Day 2 [image] interestingly, my ketones went up once I stopped PSK and went to keto. I think this is mostly dietary fat converted to ketones, not body fat ketones. I did lose weight on PSK. I used 19 days for the average of the EF but still corrected for the first three days that came back after the fast… here are the results: [image] so PSK was half the fat loss of EF (54%) and almost three quarters the lean mass loss of EF (72%). Based on my results, EF is still a superior lean m…

[gstlynx]

I don’t know if you were responding to me but I see no discrepancy, and I train with heavy lifts while fasting because I don’t care so much about muscle autophagy, I want organ autophagy–liver, kidneys,brain, gut etc.

[TotallyKO]

Hi Karim - I am obsessed with this graph. I love the way you are thinking about looking at GKI and body fat percentage. I’ve been fasting for 2+ years, but I’ve just started tracking my GKI (and doing keto) in the last few weeks. May I ask, how did you create this graph? I’d love to try and recreate this with my data! Thank you! Katherine

[Karim_Wassef]

Hi Katherine and welcome. I use excel and plot the GKI and BF% on two axes (primary and secondary). I can’t post the excel on the forum so I’m not sure the easiest way to share it, but someone else on the forum may know?