"The truth about carbs" - an article claiming glucose and fructose are necessary for optimum health. Anyone with more knowledge of biology able to translate this for me?

(Alli) #1

I’m inclined not to trust any article that just states “sugar is very anti stress” but they’ve clearly gone to a lot of effort to make their arguments so I was wondering if anyone here could better understand their reasoning?

For context, the author has been raving about carnivore for a couple of years but has had recent issues with thyroid hormones and testosterone so has added carbs back in. This pattern for men doesn’t seem uncommon as paul salidino (carnivore code) went from hardcore meat to eating a tonne of honey each day due to persistent cramps. Any thoughts on if carb cycling is necessary in the long term or if there’s something else going on here?

(Bob M) #2

In my opinion, Paul Saladino is slightly off his rocker. He was adamant that you could only eat raw egg yolks without the whites, only grass-fed beef, etc. Then he suddenly started eating honey and proclaiming it “carnivore” while at the same time announcing that “carbs don’t cause insulin resistance”. They probably don’t if what you’re doing is eating some honey sometimes. Try drinking a 6-12 pack of good beer, eating a pizza, and following that with ice cream.

As for testosterone, I wonder if less is needed on a carnivore diet? Sorta like Vitamin C? You need a lot less vitamin C. The same could be said for thyroid: that’s a very tricky subject.

Have not read the article, as of yet, though. But I already don’t like the title. There’s “truth” about carbohydrates? OK, I read part of it. They are hinging some of their arguments on…carbon dioxide? That’s a new one.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #3

The daily minimum required carbohydrate intake is 0 (zero) grams. This is known. That some people feel better when eating carbohydrate is a fact. I skimmed through the article, and it seems to me that the author is drawing some very shaky conclusions from various random facts. For example, I don’t think that the fact that we exhale more carbon dioxide when eating carbohydrates is particularly revealing. It’s just a consequence of the chemical reactions involved, not an indication of health or ill health.

#4

Agree totally with Bob and no I did not read this fluff.

Agree totally with Paul and no I did not read the article, I won’t even skim it LOL

Sugar is anti-stress, yes it is for tons of us who got super obese and sluggy and sickly and being put on maintenance meds for those sugar anti-stress days, which are, what, every single darn day of our lives LOL

and another is Paul S. I think he is over flaked now. He HAD great info but went to experiment a big ‘too rogue’ on his conclusions from something SO simple…he wanted sugar back in his life. Any carnivore will FIND any friggin’ reason to add back sugar LOL and guise it under any darn ‘research/fact/proof/fantasy’ or whatever label they find to ‘make it so’

eh, humans! too fluffy in body weight and brain games for me anymore when addressing ‘carbs’ in our eating way of life!

ugh and another ugh on this just cause I wanna say my big sigh out loud…UGH :frowning:

#5

Each to their own… My body clearly complains if I eat a significant amount of carbs but if someone needs more, eat it, that’s fine with me…

Many people proved that carb cycling isn’t necessary - but probably more carbs are needed for most people with serious exercise. I am just a normal woman who wants more muscles and is happy with just a few hours cycling/hiking now and then, my body loves very low-carb too so I probably never add more for health, well-being or energy reasons (I add them because I enjoy them. in moderation). And the carb-cycling with its insane HCLF days would make me super sick. Sugar poisoning is bad enough while I eat a ton of fat but without??? Oh my, I hope I never will be forced to try THAT.
But they seem to work for others who say they even need it. So we obviously need and should do different things as we ourselves are different.

Carbs aren’t essential, it’s a very well-known fact. The ideal amount of carb intake may be different though. Even if the body doesn’t need any (as it seems the case with me), it’s more enjoyable and convenient if I have various days, between 5 and 20g carbs while on carnivore. And many people functions better on much more, it’s known, we meet such people here too. As long as their body can handle the carbs well, it’s fine IMO.

(Bob M) #6

As one data point, I got my testosterone checked, and it was in the “normal” range, though I thought it was a bit low. But I thought that without any way to compare it. I don’t know, for instance, what other men my age who have been low carb/keto for 7+ years would get. I also only have one data point. (Though I do have a test to get another sample – reminder to self: do that!) How much does testosterone fluctuate? Does testosterone fluctuate? I have no idea, though it must be influenced somewhat by food, otherwise they wouldn’t be advocating carbs.

It’d be interesting to see testosterone levels of males my age from the Maasai or Hazda (primarily or solely meat eating tribes), for instance. Found this for Hazda, but the units are wacky:

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #7

The only thing I know about testosterone is that it is made from cholesterol. I suspect that a lot of what people state as fact about testosterone is hypothesised from incomplete data, and that when we eventually get it all sorted, much of what people assume at the moment will turn out to be misguided.

In this matter, as in many others, the temptation is to assume that because testosterone levels associate with certain outcomes, that manipulating the testosterone level will produce those outcomes. 'Tain’t necessarily so. As is the case with every other supplement and micronutrient people get worked up about. I am trying to find the original text, but I read something recently to the effect that the danger of finding a marker for some health condition is that we become fixated on manipulating the marker, not addressing the actual health condition.

(Alli) #8

Thanks for the discussion guys. I should know better than to read junk blogs as they always wind me up.

This was my reaction to it so I’m glad to see it’s not just me who thought it just grabbed at random concepts to make the point they wanted.

I suspect this is the real reason for the effort they’ve gone to to justify it.

The arguments for sugar are a bit baffling for me as someone who finds zero carb a miracle cure for my mental illness, pcos and autoimmune conditions. My takeaway is that the author has cherrypicked ‘facts’ to fit his narrative, and I will just ignore him and keep munching on beef as it makes me feel great and sugar makes me feel like I’m dying.

#9

omgosh and that is super rampant out there in life now ‘on internet media’ cause alot of what we read IS so personal to each of us that the ‘fact from fiction to mental brain games of what we require as an individual’ will always come into play.

think real cold hard science facts first the then the ‘fluff’ after comes into play and if we think that from our life, yea we can ‘read between those blurred crazy’ lines that we think someone else ‘just might’ have that ‘answer we so seek’

hell they don’t and won’t HAHA

again me being my mouth on it all LOL

(Gregory - You can teach an old dog new tricks.) #10

Of course it is. Just like other addictive substances that stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain.
Dr Robert H Lustig " Sweet Revenge "

(Gregory - You can teach an old dog new tricks.) #11

This is so true! Think about all the drugs out there whose purpose is to alleviate symptoms but not address the cause.

Does anyone really have to ask how to lower blood sugar?

No… They just want to be able to do it and still eat donuts…

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #12

If humans actually needed to eat carbohydrates, we would not be here. Our ancestors would have gone extinct long ago. The evidence is quite clear that we evolved to eat fat and meat and spend most of our lives in ketosis. Any carbs our Pleistocene ancetors ate were very different from what we have available today and provided a mere seasonal pittance to their nutrition. In fact, most of the fruits and veggies we currently have did not exist 200 years ago, let alone 20k or 200 k years ago. Yes, glucose is necessary and our liver produces all we need so we don’t need to eat it. As for fructose, it serves no useful purpose and we can live quite well without it. Honey is bee food.

Fire in a Bottle II, lipedema, adipaging, twinkie-fat
#13

and this can be seen literally on this forum and drag it a tad further!

Someone suggested some try DOM supps cause new info hit someone and ‘now it is out there’ and ‘to be applied’ info for another poster about a person’s keto issue thread that they have going down and while I didn’t say a thing on that front in that thread ever, IT SHOWS that while US as people do want to help others suggesting ‘radical off the chart useless’ knowledge of another’s life should not be suggested.

Now I draw to this conclusion that when carnivore people on my plan start, we never suggest ‘supps’ for ‘cures’ to anything and yet that gets dissed like a maniac ploy all the time as in how could ‘meat be the cure’ and it is for many of us…not all but for A GROWING majority finding this path and lifestyle, darn right.

so drugs/supplements/add this vitamin or this ‘fancy azz supp’ that might be some miracle cure WILL NEVER be what fresh real food gives PLUS of course this is not against anyone with real med issues to be adddresd but us ‘know it alls’ think we know it all HAHA yes I was one of them :slight_smile: If a Dr and test reports say you need, then yea you need thru real medical info but the ‘vitamin/mineral/add this fancy BS supp/plant vitamin supp/this tumeric or whatever’ all the time is just insanity.

no one knows what they ‘truly need’ ever without real med report background and their med history.

I say stop the ‘fluff’ on the board :wink: which isn’t much truly cause this is one darn great site! Real facts for real life people…as much as anyone can ‘really know’ a person on the internet post’ :slight_smile:

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #14

@Fangs You can say it - I’m the DOM someone. I think you will admit that those of you eating carnivore are eating very differently from the way our ancestors evolved eating carnivore. When was the last time you ate out in the backyard with only a knife and a cup and a dead cow?

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Yes, our ancestors eventually learned to cook the fat and meat, but they still drained the blood and drank it plain. Just like the Masai still do to this day. Mammalian blood (including our own) has a mineral composition that closely duplicates the mineral composition of ocean/sea water. In another topic someone asked why we need to supplement minerals on keto and I posted this same photo in my response. It’s not only keto, no one has an optimal mineral composition of blood just from what they eat. For you meat eaters: the minerals are no longer in the soil for the animals to get into their systems for you to consume even if you drank all the blood! As for fruits and vegetables, you can look up very nice tables of micronutrients supposedly contained in various fruits and veggies. But again, if those minerals are not in the soil, they’re not in the stuff growing in the soil.

So to DOM. I think it’s a great source of minerals in the amounts and proportions that match our own blood minerals. Since those trace minerals are necessary for optimum health and vitality, I think it a very good idea at least to try them. I’m trying them as a possible final solution to my leg cramps, on the hypothesis that trace minerals are involved in the electrical activity of the macro minerals sodium and magnesium that are most directly involved in muscle control and prevention of spasms. I’ll keep you posted.

I’m not someone who thinks if it wasn’t around 500 years ago it’s bunk. I think humans are very inquisitive and from time to time discover new stuff that actually works. Sometimes better than stuff that was around 500 years ago.

(Bob M) #15

@amwassil That’s a possibility about the trace minerals. At one time, I was taking a liquid trace mineral supplement that I’d add to my water. At that time, I don’t think I had cramps (but I could be mis-remembering things). I quit this when I thought it was causing issues, though I don’t think (looking back) the issues were caused by it.

@PaulL I’m 100% with you about manipulating outcomes. I’m taking some B vitamins to see what happens to my homocysteine. But if this decreases, is that good? Bad? What if it doesn’t decrease?

I also think that people on low carb diets for a long time have never been studied. So, we don’t really know about what happens. Maybe people who are on low carb diets for a long time will naturally have “lower” testosterone? We don’t know.

For thyroid issues, man that is fraught with complexity. There is definitely a train of thought that “normal” markers for thyroid function can be lower for keto/carnivores. But when I looked into it, there were too many different opinions for me to make sense of it.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #16

@ctviggen I’ve been 5 days now without any magnesium supplementation. Only Himalayan pink salt in drinking water and Aussie Trace Minerals in my morning coffee and flavoured soda water once or twice during the day. On work days (yesterday, Sat; and Thu and Fri of last week I’ve had Ocean Bomb DOM at my meals at work. So far no cramps and only a couple of incipients that I was able to deter quickly by stretching my leg.

PS: I’m OD’ing on the ATM purposely. I’m sure I’m deficient in multiple trace elements and I think the fastest way to get them back into the normal range is to OD for a week or so. The recommended dose is 5-20 drops (!) a couple times per day. I’m using 2 grams or so, which is about 22-23 drops, 2-3 times per day.

#17

personal leg cramps to stopping some extra liquor on an eating plan to ‘lets guess and just suck down’ ancient what we think minerals we might need. Nope, too much of a stretch for me.

so many throw so many ‘take this supp’ and think it is some miracle cure…got some hoodia for weight loss, the tribes used it while running down prey during their hunts to quell their appetites while trying to survive. Chew on this plant and tons of miracles. Suck down some DOM and BOOM we got liftoff LOL

sorry I find it amusing truly but I don’t wanna go further cause I absolutely understanding someone promoting something that might work for them for a particular problem as cure all. I won’t go further on my thoughts on it all.

(Bob M) #18

This might be one reason why pickle juice works for some: pickle juice is likely more than just salty water.

@Fangs I’m not sure Michael is advocating everyone try this or that it’s some type of miracle cure. For those of plagued by periodic muscle cramps, this might work. Will it work for everyone? It’s unclear.

My personal belief is that “something” is missing that’s causing cramps. What that “thing” is might vary from person to person, which is why you’ll see cures using magnesium, potassium, all kinds of stuff. But I think taking a mineral supplement with a small amount of minerals over a wide range of them isn’t a bad idea.

Do you (meaning “anyone”) need to take this? It’s also unclear. My previous doctor advised me to take a daily zinc (which I do not do, but do take them periodically), because she thought soils and therefore animals were lacking in zinc.There are whole studies placing the blame on an element (eg, selenium, zinc) missing from local soils for things like heart disease, covid, etc. Are they true? It’s really hard to know without going into those places and supplementing the missing element and seeing what happens.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #19

I’m just reporting on my own n=1 and why I think it might be a solution to at least one of my problems. It might not. There is some science to support it, but work for me? - I’ll find out. Do I need to say again that I don’t care what anyone else eats and doesn’t eat nor why they do or don’t? I simply tell folks who ask or ask for suggestions what I think is helpful or might be. If I learn about something that may be a solution or even partial solution to a widespread problem I’ll throw it out there.

(Butter Withaspoon) #20

My cramps which were not too severe or often have gone away, in spite of a huge month of exercise which was heavy lifting and some high intensity. For my N=1 the answer was to stop taking salt. :woman_shrugging: I still salt my food to taste but no more taking a pinch. Maybe the NaCl was competing with another mineral. Who knows, but it’s nice to be feeling good on no supps