Dr. Dominic D'agostino's experience following a carnivore diet | Dominic

(Joey) #21

A very sound hypothesis.

No doubt if a drug company were finally able to formulate and patent a prescription oral medication that could properly control blood levels of gloH21-tr, there’s little question that we’d have physicians annually monitoring our serum gloH21-tr levels, mainstream news articles alerting us to how dangerous elevated levels of gloH21-tr can be (if left unmanaged through medication) and perhaps even supplements as seen on YouTube that some believe might help us reduce levels of gloH21-tr in our bloodstream (not FDA approved).

[Full disclosure: I made up gloH21-tr. It is non-existent.]

#22

No apology is needed. I have found that, while I would like to think I know more than the average person, having read many papers, experimented a lot, and been married to a doctor, I have realized that when it comes to diets or eating protocols, what works for some does not work for others. There is no best way to eat.
When it comes to cholesterol, I am not sure. Both sides can bring up valid arguments. I am trying to be objective in my research. One of the big concerns I have is time. Current CVD risk models only look through a ten-year window. What does a 30-year-old do if he or she has a family history of CVD on both sides of his family? A cardiologist will say his risk is very low, and it is. (64.5 average age of 1st heart attack). However, even at 30, he is starting to show signs such as being overweight, pre-diabetic, etc. In 30 years time, this same person will have CVD. I am finding less and less good information on the web/youtube as most are trying to tell me their way is the only way. Nonsense.

#23

Don’t forget for many it’s a legitimate fear, like the majority of the planet that doesn’t eat Keto or super low carb, for them, the LDL=Bad is pretty much true, not 100% on the LMHR’s, but pretty sure it’s a problem for them as well. Can’t forget that eating keto changes the whole equation and the threat of LDL.

Can’t expect people to adapt that mindset to suit the Keto, Carni and Low Carb people, we’re a statistically insignificant amount of the population. Even though it’s true across the board that LDL doesn’t equal bad, it does when you’re eating the way (most) do, which is like crap. Until that changes, this will always be the way stuff is reported and viewed.

(Bob M) #24

If you think that one is bad, listen to this one. I stopped part way though because I thought the cognitive dissonance was so bad, I couldn’t continue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__gJ7CeQkKo

Basically, he says that he doesn’t like the carnivore diet. He has these competing thoughts:

  1. People on the carnivore diet have great lab numbers, including insulin at 2 (two – two – two, yes two) and low IGF-1, and other labs.

BUT

  1. We know that the carnivore diet is bad because there are no centenarians who are carnivore and 100 and because of epidemiology.

They then discuss how people in the “blue zones” only eat a small amount of red meat once a week.

And they both said that eating twice a day is good, but skipping breakfast is bad (again, due to epidemiology). So they both eat around 7 am then eat dinner around 7pm.

You mean to tell me because I eat breakfast at 10am instead of 7am, that this is bad, yet eating at 7am is good? Why? (And don’t say “epidemiology”.)

And they really went into the weeds with epidemiology and carbs. We should be eating high carb, low protein, until we’re 60, then we should be eating higher protein.

Oh, and everything revolves around calories.

Unless there are Metabolic Link podcasts with someone worthwhile, I’ve given up on them.

(KM) #25

I was under the impression the data about cholesterol we’ve been kicking around - that is, all the negating of poor science we’ve been doing - applied to everyone, not that keto was a magic bullet protecting the sainted few from the evil waxy fat …

#26

10am is very early, I call that breakfast too :slight_smile:
And it’s very bad for me to eat that early. Actually, 3pm is a bit too early too… I don’t understand why we should eat according to statistics or whatever instead of just listening to our bodies if that works well… Oh well, it’s not like I ever listened to such things, I am way too hedonistic and hard-headed for that. But I feel sorry for the people who force themselves to some (for them) weird and optionally harmful pattern just because they are told to do so.

By the way, I am pretty sure humans are supposed to be way more flexible… If we get food some time later, it’s still pretty good as long as it’s good food and enough. I eat regularly, every day, the details can’t be very important as long as my body says it’s fine and I get what I need. Even if I have 5 meals and my first one is at 4pm (I don’t think I ever had that pattern but something close happened a few times on carnivore).

Yeah, sure… Sigh. By the way what is low and high protein for them? I call >2g/kg for LBM high and no idea what I call low… Below 1g/kg, maybe. But it may be just me.
I can’t consider my protein intake right if I STARVE like crazy due to low protein (starve as the feeling, I probably would function though not nearly as well. my sleep is bad enough without going to bed hungry). Even if it’s high as it is. If we have this wonderful feedback built in (if we are lucky and it works well), why not to use it? It’s such a crazy idea to follow some other people’s idea when it’s very well known but people make mistakes AND it’s so complex that there is no One Right Way for everyone anyway.

(KM) #27

I’ve been turning something over in my mind because it seems to me it comes up a lot. “Optimal” vs. … well I guess I’d call it “Natural”. Or maybe just “Good Enough”.

Once again I go back to early humans … when to eat probably wasn’t a matter of preference. I imagine our circadian rhythm got us up around sunrise, but was our food available at that moment? Did it first need to be hunted and gathered? Would we actually wait and hold food back and guard it all night to have a Heart Smart Breakfast at 7 am? (And which population was doing what - seems like African Savanah and Arctic Circle would have two extremely different patterns of both rising and food consumption.)

My point being, perhaps there is an absolutely optimal time to eat in order to tweak and perfect the human biology, but is it necessary for ordinary good health? it seems unlikely to me.

#28

It’s still bad science that villainized LDL as a whole yes, but the problem is that elevated LDL in somebody that’s not limiting either fats or carbs is really can mess them up like we’ve been told, which is how that correlation happened in the first place. For us, the LDL simply does it’s job and transports energy, but if we were to eat the higher fat, plus eating carbs in excess like the majority does, it actually does become a problem.

Not too different from how if most people’s glucose levels hit the 40’s-50’s or even 60’s, they’ll probably feel hypoglycemic at best, or pass out at worse. But in somebody with a bunch of Ketone’s in their blood, they feel fine, because we’re running on those instead. The way we eat can change a lot of the “rules” that are wrongly thought to apply to everybody equally, which they don’t.

#29

Admittedly he talks like a scientist, never settling on a decisive ‘truth’, and enjoys the variety in humanity being able to live by eating a huge spectrum of potential foods. Dr D’agostino found the carnivore diet was not optimal for him and he measures and tracks biomarkers for that optimisation goal.

For some, tracking is a stressful psychological disorder, for others it is a motivational curiosity.

Dr. D’ does also talk about the way he felt while eating the way he chooses. And he felt good on a well-formulated ketogenic diet and he felt good on a carnivore diet.

He reiterates an interesting point that dietary fibre, while not currently considered essential (in a dualistic human philosophical predominance), may not be optimal to avoid for some people. In this area I like food scientist, Gabor Erdosi’s, take on fibre that the structure and functionality of fibrous food materials also occur in meat, and that eating a food closer to its whole food (non-processed and packaged - with processing applied to detoxify it) form is the healthier way of eating. That meaning that there is fibre in carnivore diets.

(Geoffrey) #30

I liked her. Good talk.

(Geoffrey) #31

I had no bias when I became a carnivore. I just had common sense and all of the evidence I was seeing was showing that there was absolutely no evidence that fiber was essential. When I came into this lifestyle I was as ignorant as they come but I learned enough to know I was on the right track and after over 430 days as a carnivore and having been healed of 16 different ailments including atrial fibrillation and losing 57 pounds without even trying I’m going to say the people and studies that I followed were telling me the truth. My N of 1 shows me what’s right for me, as well as all of those hundreds of thousands around the world, must be doing something right.

(Mark Rhodes) #32

He doesn’t say his carb count. He’s taller than me and just as solid. I eat 0-120 CHO daily and stay ketogenic both in blood and breath. We both lift weights.

To be sure, Bikman also has ideas that carnivore may not be the solution for all.

#33

Again, you were only looking at information that confirmed your point of view that you do not need fiber. How many studies did you look at that discussed the need for fiber or the need to optimize gut health with fiber?

I assume you went from a standard diet to a carnivore diet. Why no keto? You believe all of the 16 different ailments you had were all healed by going carnivore? I am assuming that you have a hierarchy of the 16 ailments? If so, what ailments if they came back or if new ones appear would you then question carnivore?

You may think that, but they just confirmed what you already believe. How many studies or people do you follow that say the opposite? The answer is none.

100% agreed. Only time will tell. All D’Agostino was saying was that this was his experience as a carnivore and that fiber, while not essential, may be good if you are trying to optimize.

(Bob M) #34

But the difference is that he says he eats keto, yet needs fiber to manage his blood sugar and insulin. That’s not really keto.

Yes, I’ve eaten 100g+ per day of carbs and also never got a zero on my BHB, eating 2 days worth as a test. (What I did get was hunger, being tired, sleepy at 3pm,etc., because one day I ate 100g of carbs when I did not exercise. That was what I used to get all the time when eating carbs, and I don’t like those feelings.)

But what he says is unreasonable. He says that people eating carnivore have fantastic blood values like fasting insulin and other markers…but carnivore is bad because we don’t know of any carnivores that are 100 years old. And, epi evidence indicates we should all be eating whatever the “blue zones” eat.

I am not advocating for everyone or even anyone to eat carnivore. I don’t think most people need to eat carnivore. But your argument CANNOT be that people eating carnivore look and feel great and have great blood metrics, but carnivore is bad for you. This is illogical.

You’d at least have to toss in high LDL or … something. Anything. Throw us a bone.

What I think is happening – reading between the lines – is that D’Agostino believes that plants are “good”, as is “fiber”, and so, by definition, carnivore must be “bad”. But that can’t be your argument. Show us how people who don’t eat plants are being negatively harmed.

I can see that plants can have some value. I myself am taking tumeric/curcumin pills, and black seed oil. But nowhere will I argue that someone eating only meat and not taking that or not eating other plants or not eating fiber is killing themselves.

And I know that some people like “fiber”. I can eat small amounts of “fiber”. But if I eat too much fiber, say too many salads in a short time period, all heck breaks loose for me. I am therefore on a low fiber diet.

But nowhere will I argue that others shouldn’t be eating higher or even high fiber. If fiber does not cause constipation for you (as it does for me), maybe you can eat high fiber? I’m also not going to say that someone eating “zero” fiber by eating all meat is eating a bad diet.

And that’s basically what it appears to me D’Agostino is doing.

Edit: While I’m on my rant, he seems to say that people are losing weight on a carnivore because they are in a “calorie deficit”. While I could have plenty to discuss there, why does no one ask “Why?” He’s supposed to be a scientist. Wouldn’t the first question you ask be, “Why?” Why are they in a “calorie deficit”?

I’m testing allulose now, which is supposedly causes GLP-1 to be released. I think it does cause lower hunger, at least sometimes. (I haven’t figured out a dosage level, or how long it takes to work.)

But what if carnivore works for losing weight because it affects hormones? Or provides more protein? Or provides more satiety due to nutrient density? Or something else? Or a combination of these?

Any “scientist” who chalks things up to a “calorie deficit” without more thought, isn’t a scientist in my mind.

(KM) #35

I just have to say that perhaps we don’t know of any because we couldn’t. There is no 100 year old control group of first world carnivores to observe, and precious few even in the past 20 years.

Eating a purely animal diet and also having access to modern medicine has been pretty much unheard of over the past 100 years. We had indigenous tribes which ate this way but had no modern life-extending medical protections, and we had “society” which was at least partially spared from death by genetic deformity, infection, disease and injury, but which was actively encouraged Not to eat a carnivore diet (and/or financially prohibited from doing so) for at least the last 50 years. If N = first world people eating carnivore continuously from 1924 until their death, for all intents and purposes, N=0.

#36

Nope. Scarcity was and is something that all indigenous tribes faced. Even current hunter-gatherer societies face this. Yes, they prized animals as part of their diet, but if they only relied on animals as their food source, they would be dead. Current studies on existing hunter-gathering societies show only about a 25% success rate when hunting. Therefore, they must eat something else that is available; otherwise, they would have not survived.

(KM) #37

Why are you conflating 25% success and “not enough”? I have a 25% success rate with making pickles that come out well. So I keep making them until a batch works, and I have all the pickles I want.

I do see what you’re saying in broad terms; beyond the Inuit and Masai warrior populations even indigenous tribes eat significant plant matter as well as animals, but your objection is supporting my point, which is that we don’t have a first world carnivore baseline to examine in order to find 100 year old carnivores, and if there is an indigenous carnivore population that’s not living to 100 years, we may be able to lay that at the feet of the rest of their lifestyle.

(Geoffrey) #38

No I was not confirming what I already knew because I didn’t know anything at the time. I was researching and yes I did look at some studies that claimed fiber was needed but as I said, common sense led me to believe that it wasn’t. There was absolutely no proof shown that it was need. Only conjecture but there was a lot of evidence showing that fiber was not needed.

Yes I went straight into carnivore. I don’t go keto because it was never presented to me as an option for one thing and for another I had done Adkins for ten years back in the 90’s and found it wasn’t sustainable for me and when I was introduced to carnivore it fit me like a glove because I love meat and have always despised vegetables and the diet is easy to do for me.

Again, no. I believe what I believe now because of the research I’ve done not because I wanted to believe it. I did look at both sides of the health arguments. Both for and against and again, carnivore was the logical choice for optimal health.
To say that my “answer is none”, is not only incorrect but very insulting and I don’t appreciate someone that doesn’t even know me to judge me or what I’ve done. You have never met me yet you are calling me out as a liar and I don’t appreciate it.

This is the last I care to talk to you so you may have the last word and I will not respond so you are free to continue to insult me without any rebuttal.
Good night.

#39

I am truly sorry that you feel this way

Wishing you nothing but the best in health.

(Geoffrey) #40

Well thank you for the almost apology that was just as condescending as your previous posts.
Yeah, I wish you the best health as well regardless of how you wish to do it.