🍖 == 🍰


(Kerri Hines) #22

Yeah, 65% is really a lot! It’s so high a person really wouldn’t have to even make an effort to stay well below that. I ONLY eat meat and I only get about 25-30% of calories from protein. In order to get to 65% and not also double my fat intake, I’d have to use powder.
Whey is insulinogenic, so it does make me curious of what the protein source was.


(Kerri Hines) #23

That’s what I’m thinking too. Either something like whey was used or calories being lower could make it easier to consume the higher ratio but it doesn’t seem like studying this at such low calories would make sense. It seems like they would’ve just provided a maintenance level of calories.
Good points for sure.


(Richard Morris) #24

it was an isocaloric diet - so somehow they managed to have the same number of calories between the 2 non starvation diets. It would surely have had to have been some kind of liquid diet (but they don’t mention the method).

I don’t think they were intending to model a sustainable diet, as this was only a 67hr experiment to see what circulating lipids did. The fascinating thing is on a 65% protein diet they behaved as if the subject was on a high glucose diet.

The common wisdom is that glucose production from protein is driven by demand, so either that is incorrect and an excess of substrate over drives glucose production (as mentioned in the paper) or a high protein diet sustains a high level of glucose demand preventing all the benefits of a low carb diet.

If that latter is the case, then what interests me is what is the threshold of protein above which you may as well be on a high carb diet, and below which you begin to get the benefits of a low carb diet.

Either way there are several interesting questions that this raises.


(Kerri Hines) #25

I also wonder if the protein source makes a difference. In this study it suggests that whey protein raises insulin without raising blood glucose, which seems like would be unique to whey as compared to chicken or especially beef as the source. So maybe it’s more the specific amino acid effect of the protein and not a GNG mechanism at all???
“The combination of isoleucine, leucine, valine, lysine and threonine exerted strong stimulatory effect on insulin secretion (+270%, P < 0.05), which was further augmented by GIP (+558% compared to that produced by glucose, P < 0.05).”
What do you think this study is demonstrating? I may not be putting all the pieces together. Or any of them for that matter.


#26

If the brain is demanding glucose, then it’s still demand driven, yes? Why wouldn’t it use protein for that first since it can’t store the protein. It wouldn’t break down fat for glucose (and therefore ketones) if adequate protein is present. Measuring blood sugar seems pointless if you want to know where the glucose is going. It’s only in metabolically deranged people that we can see the increase in circulating glucose.

Or I could be wrong. :wink:


(Richard Morris) #27

I did an experiment with Whey vs Egg White in a glycogen depleted state

Whey most definitely causes my pancreas to pump out buckets of insulin for about 6 hours - I am an aerobically fit, but profoundly insulin resistant subject.

Egg whites causes more of the response you would expect from protein as you see the sequence of mild glucagon and insulin secretions, there is very little glucose excursion and it’s all over after 3 hours.

So it might be possible for the high protein arm of this experiment to have been unusually insulinogenic. You’d still expect to see significant glucagon secretion from so much protein which would drive new glucose creation. A meal with enough insulinogenic protein might result in high levels of glucose AND insulin - just like a high carb meal. I suspect for a profoundly insulin resistant person that effect may be amplified.

It could be the threshold is sufficient glucose for the brain to adequately fuel. As long as glucose and insulin are high - OAA (Oxaloacetate) is restocked and ketones not produced. Once there is insufficient glucose for the brain to adequately fuel, the process of making new glucose depletes OAA and that makes ketones and we go down a path of the brain adapting to fuel mostly on ketones.

Perhaps if you eat enough protein (potentially specifically insulinogenic protein) to make enough glucose that the brain does not have to adapt then you are just on high carb diet that gives you fishy, ammoniac, rotten egg smelling breath.

I wonder what that cut over point is. 2g of protein roughly converts to 1g of glucose in GNG, so if the brain needs some 150g/day of glucose … maybe 300g/day of protein is the cut over point.


Knox unflavored gelatin
(Kerri Hines) #28

Seems like there are so many possibilities and a lot of individual variation for sure.
I hadn’t ever looked into why whey is insulinogenic before just a few days ago and thought it was pretty interesting and this discussion reminded me of it.


#29

I don’t think gluconeogenesis is purely demand driven. Insulinogenic responses from food (sweet tasting food, or amino acids, etc) causes depletion of glucose (shuttling out of blood stream and into cells). This then drives the need for more glucose generation. So, if other factors cause insulin secretion, which ends up increasing fat inventory as opposed to burning for fuel, then the argument of gluconeogenesis as demand-driven only mechanism drops dead in its tracks.


#30

Thus demand increases (via the brain).


#31

The total demand is a sum of more than one variable:

  1. glucose removed from the blood because of insulinogenic response
  2. demand from the brain
  3. other needs…

Yes, there is demand-driven need (by the brain), but protein ingestion that produces insulin secretion that robs the blood of glucose and creates fat inventory in cells is not a qualifier for demand-driven dynamics.

Let me put it this way. Imagine you have two automobiles. They are identical. You drive them both the same distance. One is driven slowly, hardly using the brakes. The other you slam the gas pedal and then slam the brakes, over and over again…drive in a very inefficient manner. At the end, the fuel consumption will be different (the second one will consume more gas). The first driving condition is more closely the demand-driven scenario, while the second scenario introduces external factors not intended for the design of the normal driving conditions.

If you eat way too much protein, which promotes insulin secretion, followed by shuttling of glucose into cells, which increases your fat stores, then to me that’s like slamming the gas pedal and brakes. Can’t really call that demand-driven gluconeogenesis. You are forcing external conditions to create fat inventory increase in cells…not burn fuel for a purpose.


#32

I’m not sure I understand why this is not a “qualifier”? Blood glucose goes low, by whatever means, and demand increases.
You can remove plenty of glucose from the blood via insulin and not have an issue if you also have ketones to support the brain, which is why some people can get into the 50 or 40 mg/dl range when fasting and ketones are high. This can be driven even lower in a medically supervised setting, down to around 15 mg/dl iirc. As soon as the brain senses it isn’t getting enough energy through combined glucose+ketones, or absolute essential glucose levels, for its basic needs it will trigger a request for more.

It is because protein metabolism does not generate sufficient ketones to supplement brain energy needs that more glucose is needed. There is no other demand-driven component that I know of. Muscles will run quite nicely on fat, ketones and lactate. Red blood cells require glucose but they’re not going to demand any before the brain signals distress.


(Gabor Erdosi) #33

Forget about the myth that insulin shuttles glucose into cells. Regulation of blood glucose is mainly done by glucose release from the liver (and in a strongly ketogenic context the kidneys). Consequently, diabetic hyperglycemia is mainly the inability to stop glucose dumping when necessary.
If you delete the insulin sensitive glucose transporter (GLUT4) in skeletal muscle, the biggest glucose sink in the body – absolutely nothing happens. No symptoms at all.


#34

Erdoke, I doubt that the insulinogenic response of protein is a myth.

If protein causes an insulinogenic response, which through a series of biochemical activities causes greater fat inventory (ie weight gain), ain’t no way someone is going to convince me that this qualifies as a “demand-driven” reaction. Seriously, that’s ridiculous. The protein did it…not the body’s need for energy. So obvious.


(Gabor Erdosi) #35

I’m not sure I understand. My point was only that BG regulation works by stopping release of glucose into the bloodstream and not via shoveling it into cells. That part is a long standing medical myth.
Protein elicits both insulin and glucagon release, that’s why BG remains stable in a healthy individual.
In a ketogenic context both GNG and KG are driven by low insulin, more precisely by increased acetone-CoA generation in the liver. The lever is oxaloacetate availability, and amino acids can increase that substantially. See attached picture, especially feed into OAA (direct) and pyruvate (indirect).


#36

Erdoke,
Where is the diagram that shows the dynamic of biochemical reactions that occur under the condition of insulinogenic response of protein?


(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #37

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

JUST KIDDING.
I find this discussion interesting as hell.
Carry on.


#38

Brenda, my apologies if my words are indicating a fight ensuing. Certainly not my attempt here.

The hormonal responses when we eat food has put us in the metabolic mess we are in. It’s not straight forward CICO flow diagrams of the breakdown of molecules. Especially in the case of insulin’s involvement.

I wish we had a better grasp of what the biochemical dynamics are with insulinogenic response of various foods/substrates. Clearly, it remains a very fuzzy science.


(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #39

@Fiorella
I WAS JOKING DAMMIT


#40


(Peter Salls) #41

You guys know way more about all this than I do, so here’s my simple question: on my My fitness Pal my protein levels are 20% with the gram total being 60. Does this make sense? I don’t think I can determine what percentage of of my caloric intake comes from protein. My caloric intake is 1200. Any help or suggestions are appreciated.