Fixing Broken Metabolism - Dr. Berg

(Carl D Black) #41

What do you all think of this statement. Is this correct?: “By converting amino acids, glycerol, and lactate into sugar, the liver is able to meet the glucose needs of the body and brain during times of fasting and carbohydrate restriction [aka Keto]. This is why there is no essential requirement for carbohydrates in the diet. Your liver will, in most cases, make sure you have enough glucose in the bloodstream for your cells to survive.” - from https://www.ruled.me/ketosis-ketones-and-how-it-works

(bulkbiker) #42

Yep thats the definition of Gluconeogenesis… an on demand process which is exactly why there are no essential dietary carbs.And why your brain doesn’t suddenly stop working when you stop eating glucose.

(Carl Keller) #43

Sounds legit to me. If this were not the case then prehistoric humans who lived in northern climates wouldn’t have survived for the past 200,000 years. The availability of carbs were limited at best.

(Carl D Black) #44

What caught my attention the most was the statement that carbs are “not an essential requirement”. …still learning :slight_smile:

(less is more, more or less) #45

That’s nearly a word-for-word quote from Dr Sarah Hallberg on this Diet Doctor podcast.

(less is more, more or less) #46

Thanks, @CarlKeller, I love learning new stuff.

I have an opposite take on medical practice. I’d be dead¹ without it. Dr. Westman is righting my eating, btw. He’s a medical doctor. On the whole, that’s a baby I’d like to keep as we drain the bathwater.

¹ In the literal, and not metaphorical, sense.

(Carl D Black) #47

I agree with you, but I would stress that the so-called ‘doctors’ of medicine have had to either retrain or further their learning in order to help their patients. Many doctors are incompetent and lazy when it comes to treating disease and have become merely pill pushers. I am sitting 8 feet from a lad whose mom was a victim of this very thing. She was 31 years old. Now she’s dead. As the kiddies like to say: jus’ sayin’

(less is more, more or less) #48

Which profession is free from the incompetent?

I say we flip this dynamic. Garage mechanics, butchers, cashiers, chefs, whatever, have a number of incompetent in their ranks. We need to take ownership in our lives, and not just accept what we’re told, even by experts. It was after I sought a second opinion to have a benign growth removed from my right inner ear that I found an excellent doctor. That benign growth was a precursor to spinal meningitis. After the removal procedure, the doctors said it was weeks away from fatality. I have other personal stories of where a doctor, literally, saved my life. I have tales of incompetence, too, which speaks to humanity, not profession.

Holding a grudge against an entire profession because of an incompetent practitioner is the tail wagging the dog.

(Carl D Black) #49

Hence the word ‘many’. I agree with you, and I’m glad doctors were able to help you. My main contention is that in medicine, where lives are at stake, incompetence and corruption really shouldn’t have any place. Those that abuse or are incompetent should be forcibly removed from their positions. If a plumber is incompetent and a house gets flooded, it can be repaired. If a doctor pushes a pharmaceutical unnecessarily and it ends up killing someone, there is no respawn or repair. They’re dead. So there is really no correlation.

(less is more, more or less) #50

Firstly, my condolences to the lad you mention. I should have led with that. I lost my dad when I was 5, and I know that pain. It’s a pain that diminishes but never goes away.

Here’s the rub with your wish. The very same censure powers you long for could silence the doctors leading the low-carb efforts now. Heck, we saw Dr. Tim Noakes have the legal fight of his life over a bloody tweet. The South African government could have shut him down for not conforming to their “ideal.” This is why we, and no “controlling agency,” should lead this charge. But we are skirting over from low-carb to low-government, and I don’t care to hash politics here.

Let science do science and we support the results we desire.

(Doug) #51

I was afraid you would check on this… :smile:

I am guessing that ‘Q&A With Dr. Phinney’ is more recent than the things we discussed in this thread:

It sounds to me like he has at least somewhat changed his position on autophagy, and if so, good - my opinion is that we are headed for some very interesting things in this field.

Alex - great video! :sunglasses: :star2: He puts a lot of good information there, fast. On persistent reduction in metabolic rate due to fasting - this is the best stuff I’ve ever seen, and I’ve always wondered about this. Sobering information, really.

Where I would challenge him is on the data and methods about resting metabolism in the shorter term - he acknowledges that what he’s presenting comes from things almost 40 and more years ago, i.e. before 1980. I have no reason to question that over a longer time our metabolisms decline, but more recent measuring of studied fasting subjects shows an increase averaging 13% after four days of fasting. Dr. Fung says this is due to increased secretion of norepinephrine (also called noradrenaline).

I just did a 5.5 day fast, and in the last two days I really was warmer - it made a difference. Perhaps, at least for me personally, there is a sweet spot for fasting from 4 days to whenever my metabolism would slow (or just get back down to my normal, non-fasting rate?).

Yet I don’t see the above as a big deal, unless one would be scared off fasting for a week or less.

What I am left with is a disagreement about lean tissue loss. Here is a quote from the Virta Health blog:

After just one day of fasting, you begin to lose body protein from lean tissue – from places like muscle, heart, liver, and kidneys. These organs and their functions are things that we want to preserve, and definitely should not be given up lightly. So while you may lose weight according to the scale, part of it will be at the cost of your important, metabolically active tissue.

So, in the second day of fasting, we are losing part of some of those organs? Come on, guys…

‘Nirogen balance’ - yes. Excreting urea and ammonia - sure. What I think is misleading is the common perception that lean mass necessarily heavily equates to “muscle.” Our skin is roughly 1/6 of our weight, and many people note the difference between longer-term fasting and calorie restriction or intermittent fasting, i.e. longer fasts have them not ending up with as much loose skin following weight loss.

The classic case of Angus Barbieri - went from 456 lbs/207 kg to 180 lbs/82 kg during a fast of 382 days. He probably did lose some muscle, as moving 456 lbs around would take a little extra. He also started the fast with over 70 lbs. of skin on him, and that’s one big place where the body can get protein - it’s not muscle and it’s certainly not heart/liver/kidneys.

Phinney’s figures on lean mass loss from the video would have Angus losing 99 lbs or a bit more. Very believable to me - skin, some muscle, and that’s probably about all. He got to 180 lbs and maintained a healthy weight for years afterward.

There was a Russian study on people who had starved all the way to death. The average loss in heart muscle mass was 3%. So to hear that on the second day of fasting we’ll be losing part of our heart, liver and kidneys sounds needlessly alarmist to me.

(Bacon for the Win) #52

Dr. Ben Bikman is also worth investigating.

(Carl Keller) #53

It took me 30 years to finally use that phrase. I learned it in a philosphy class many presidents ago.

(Running from stupidity) #54

Thanks for saying what I was going to say, but better :slight_smile:

+1

So, in the second day of fasting, we are losing part of some of those organs? Come on, guys…

Yeah, there’s a lot more to LEAN TISSUE than that. Say, from the largest organ in the body of which a lot of people on keto have excess amounts of and would LIKE to lose it in order to tighten up? Yeah, THAT lean tissue - the skin.

FTFY

(Bacon for the Win) #55

Thank you.

#56

Ha ha, yep that’s me.

It looks like I’m going to need Keto+MORE.

Not sure what the “MORE” will be, maybe it will indeed be fasting, maybe track down leaky gut issues, maybe something else ???. My inflammation issues were greatly reduced by keto, maybe I just need to hang in there in give it more time.

Otherwise I know very little about fasting so I can’t say much …

(Omar) #57

I am not disputing the value of modern medicine.

What brought my last comment is when some one said Dr Berg is not a doctor.

I am saying when some one has passion and desire for something he can add value. He does not need to have a medical degree. I have been hurt by doctors having a medical degree and helped by people who don’t.

no generalization here

very simple

If I continued the old fashioned method of visiting and listening to doctors and if I did not sit on the driver seat I would probably be dead or severely sick by now.

I do not trust doctors and I am not willing to for whatever remain of my life.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #58

Cahill’s study, “Starvation in Man”
Keys’s Minnesota Starvation Study

Both are considered highly reliable.

ETA: Phinney makes the point in the above-linked video that no one has yet produced any data to overturn their conclusions.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #59

Sounds pretty accurate, so far as I can tell. Gluconeogenesis is regulated by the insulin/glucagon ratio, which is determined by carbohydrate intake. In the presence of dietary carbohydrate, gluconeogenesis is unnecessary, but in its absence, very necessary. Bikman contends that there is no actual scientific evidence that the brain needs any glucose at all, but everyone agrees that there are cells, such as our red blood cells/corpuscles/erythrocytes that absolutely need glucose to survive. Any cell that lacks a mitochondrion must have glucose.

ETA: Bikman has issued a plea for anyone with a reference to a published study showing that the brain needs glucose to survive to come forward. He has not been able to find such a study.

(less is more, more or less) #60

We agree on this. As for old-fashioned and I’m pretty old, getting a second opinion has been around since I was a kid, so perhaps we live in different cultures?

If you were to type that blind trust is a foolish proposition, I’d agree. Earned trust is another matter. Dr Westman has earned my trust, as has my GP. (I didn’t care for him at first, but that was due to my misconception)

I do see a distinct thread in low-carb forums, i.e., “doctors can go suck eggs.” I find that a counterproductive sentiment, especially if we tout our “evidence based” principles.