Non-nutritive (non-sugar) Sweeteners white paper
Interesting, but Iām not sure that our fixation on intestinal bacteria will prove worthwhile over time. I also wonder whether the Ī²-hydroxybutyrate from a ketogenic diet might not help preserve the immune reactivity of the intestines at the proper level. I doubt there were any ketonians in the studies mentioned. Nevertheless, it is an interesting article, and I look forward to reading it in full.
Hiya,
I think āgut wall immune reactivityā as they put it, is one of the most important things in the health of our culture today.
Gut wall integrity is suffering horribly in our culture. Inflammation caused by this, albeit the thing that underlies nearly all disease, is really just a small part of the problem. I meet countless people who are a walking ball of medical symptoms I recognize as likely sourcing from things like being intolerant to grain proteins, but thatās a big $ source so will be repressed in the medical world for attention as long as possible. But people only react to foods (aside from allergies) due to poor gut integrity.
I think this issue is gigantic. I think a huge portion of our society is sick as hell and it starts with overcarbing and seed oils but between the effects of poor foods and antibiotics and so on, by late 30s at the latest for most ā in childhood for some ā I suspect a gigantic % of our culture has serious gut integrity problems.
Every tiny different place in the gut differs though: maybe that is for absorbing vitamin A, or maybe Selenium, that they arenāt getting much of anymore. Autoimmune diseases are rising in the population to the extreme, which is likely sourced from the effects of leaky gut as well.
Everything causes effects on the gut biome, so studying what those are is merely basic interest. But not everything affects the integrity of the gut wall. THAT part is crisis-level important, because the downstream effects are almost infiniteā¦ and almost never medically diagnosed.
And because in reality, a person can simply not be healthy until itās fixed. They just canāt. They can get leaner or stronger, they can improve on wherever they were. But they will never be fully absorbing all their nutrients, they will never be NOT having inflammation from most their foods, they will never be NOT at risk from developing autoimmune disorders ā starting with thyroid but thereās so many now ā until the gut lining has integrity again.
Which is tough because itās unlikely to be diagnosed. So only people who tend to think outside the medical system box to begin with; only people likely to use the internet to research their symptoms; only people who donāt buy into the idea that people are naturally sick as they age or that if something runs in a family youāre expected to āgetā that sickness; only people who proactively pursue knowledge and then proactively pursue implementing whatever ideas might help; are ever likely to FIX the problem.
And modern wheat, and antibiotics, and all kinds of things that are very common in our society may all be contributors or causes of that problem.
Well most (not all) people āgo ketoā because they are not healthy ā they are fat in most cases, though there are other reasons. Non-nutritive sweeteners are pretty commonly used, and more in the lowcarb world than the (sic) āketoā world since thereās a slightly larger carb allowance there for sweets. So if some of these (doubtful all) do actual damage to the intestinal wall, thatās pretty critical for the ketogenic world to be informed about.
If sucralose is damaging but stevia and monkfruit arenāt, for example, thatās pretty important to know, because a ton of āsugarfreeā stuff is made with sucralose. This reminds me of people who eat the keto bread and wraps that are the super high-gluten frankenwheat products. It would just seem injust to me that someone would go to all the trouble to pursue a lifestyle to make them healthier, and be completely unaware that they are damaging themselves in some deeper way than merely needing to lose 30 pounds.
Fortunately, a ketogenic diet has been shown to help with most of these problems, most likely the effect of Ī²-hydroxybutyrate, which is the principal ketone body produced by the liver. Dr. Phinney cites several studies showing that the main benefit of eating fibre is the butyrate produced by our intestinal bacteria when they digest the the fibre, and he believes that Ī²-hydroxybutyrate has an equally beneficial healing effect, possibly even a better one. Certainly there are a lot of posts on these forums from people who believe that their IBS and other bowel problems improved dramatically as a result of eating keto.
Yes, ketogenic eating helps it for two reasons: The butyrate you mention; and that people stop eating tons of crappy food, to include grains.
Whether it is 100% healingā¦ it was not for me. It was massively helpful yes. I still had issues. Taking up drinking homemade milk kefir improved things further, but even still itās not 100%. So I suspect the curative is more than that at least for some.
Kinda wandered afar, we did, but back to the original point, if there are some forms of sweeteners that actually do damage to the intestinal wall, itās important the keto community know what they are so they can be avoided. Butyrate helps generate good bacteria, it doesnāt fix intestinal walls.