Episode #69 - Show me the Science!


(Richard Morris) #27

It’s a valid question. I just don’t think we have much of an understanding on what our gut culture does with the food we don’t absorb. Eventually we might be able to consider the biome as a secondary digestion much as we think of the multiple stages of ruminant digestion.

One of the many things that Dr Phinney said last year that I found interesting was in relation to the care and feeding of the cells that line the gut. It’s commonly known that enterocytes prefer to be fueled by short chained fats in the gut rather than glucose from circulation. So much so that diets low in fibre have a weak correlation with bowel cancer. This is apparently one of the justifications from dietitians for a diet high in fibre. Namely to feed bacteria that convert indigestible fibre into the short chained fatty acid, butyric acid.

The “interesting thing” was in a low carb dietary context that enterocytes prefer betahydroxybutyrate in circulation over glucose and being a 4 carbon molecule it apparently replaces butryic acid as the preferred fuel for the gut. Which means for those of us on a low carb diet, we may also be able to get away with a low fibre diet.


(Richard Morris) #29

Luckily enough my Tivo recorded it because I had previously given a thumbs up for a the other “Insight” episode that Dr Mosely was on (that time about type 2 diabetes).


(Merete C) #30

Thank you for this PERFECT episode (again!!).
I will definitely give this to my diabetic doctor to open up his mind.
He is in general supportive of me going keto, because he can see how healthy I am, but this does not equal that he gets it. He has stopped bothering me about my LDL (156 and up from 129 since going keto) but more because he knows what I am going to say.
Was it just me who could not find it, or has the 2016 Virta Health study by Volek, Phinney and Hallberg been left out. This is extremely interesting to compare ones own numbers with when starting out.
I put it here in case anybody else is interested: http://assets.virtahealth.com/docs/Virta_Clinic_10-week_outcomes.pdf
Thanks again for all you do