Jamie Koonce Responds To Paleo Criticisms Of Ketogenic Diets (a Jimmy Moore Podcast)
I’m wondering what your thoughts are on the prevailing dogma in the Paleo community that women need more carbohydrates than men and should avoid ketosis and intermittent fasting. These claims don’t seem to be backed up by any research. (At least I’m not finding it.) After listening to a few talks from the Ancestral Health Symposium at Berkeley, I am fed up with the baseless claims and would like to respond on your podcast if you’re game.
Translation: 'I can't find research literature that disproves negatives, so = positive.' Note: "negatives," in this context = falsification of hypotheses and assertions. ...I haven't listened to any AHS presentation but for Grace's REWILD! presentation, yet, but I'm gratified to understand that the VLC/Ketogenic are taking it in the shorts to such an extent that panties are bunching.
Probably, Chis Kresser didn't help very much (Is a Low-Carb Diet Ruining Your Health? and 7 Things Everyone Should Know About Low-Carb Diets; exhaustive comment threads in both)
Briefly as I can, I'm going to hit on Jimmy's 7 Lingering Myths Everyone Should Know About Low-Carb Ketogenic Diets; with dessert at the end, demonstrating why a guy like Dr. Ron Rosedale is to be dismissed. He simply refuses to learn. He already [thinks he] knows everything.
I always like to give you a metatheme, when I can. Today's metatheme is: there's simply no scientific or real-world basis for long-term ketogenic dieting. There's not, and this is undeniable, apart from fantasy stuff. This is not exactly the same as saying that a long-term ketogenic diet is bad for you. Rather, it's saying there's just no evolutionary basis for it. Combine that with the established science that a ketogenic metabolism is absolutely a survival adaptation to starvation, and proponents are simply, a-priori, stranded in the position that modeling starvation is, most enthusiastically, 'optimal for everyone' or, most guardedly, 'something you should try' ("See if Starvation Hormonal Cascades Work For You!").
At the same time, thousands of people are relating anecdotes about how just a bump in carbs to to a moderate 100-200g range, mostly from starches and not refined sugar (though various fruit juices, too, seem to benefit a lot of folks) works for them. And, those anecdotes have the virtue of being backed by the general experience of about 120 billion other people who've lived in history. Undertake a human experiment if you like, long term and not intermittent; but at least, please, not while harboring the fantasy that it's anything but an experiment on yourself and perhaps those you love most.
This is not going to be exhaustive. I could likely write a whole post on each point. Rather, I'll hit one thing or two in each that strikes me.
#1: Ketosis leads to hypothyroidism and adrenal fatigue. "Why this popular meme continues to find traction in the lack of any evidence that a well-formulated low-carb, moderate protein, high-fat, ketogenic diet with adequate calories is the causal factor in it is beyond me."
Allow me to make it unbeyond you, Jimmy: Ketogenic diets are, metabolically, starvation diets. This is why they work so well, initially, for fat loss. Metabolism is such that people can "hear" the voices of their fat cells melting away and they're either not as hungry, or fully satiated.
I still remember when I was on a high-fat diet (Refs: All Diets Are High-Fat Diets and Losing Weight is Pretty Much Like Eating Lard) to the tune of 210,000 my-own-ass-fat calories (60 pounds) over about a year. I was typically unhungry enough, usually, that over time, it worked.
"That’s a very clear sign of too low calories, not a very low-carb, ketogenic diet."
Indeed. Such a puzzle—these diet contortions evolutionarily designed to get us through when we have too low energy to thrive. So, again, just unnatural; and if you're going to undertake it long term, then you may find yourself having to eat when you simply aren't hungry—keep calories sufficient for thyroid; test a lot—very natural. Again, just unnatural. Look at wild animals in sufficient environments. This should be our standard.
#2: You’ll destroy your gut health eating a low-carb, high-fat diet. "But yet again, there’s a lot of hype and hysteria that accompanies these bold proclamations that are not backed by any sound scientific data proving it to be 100% accurate."
There's always gonna be a straw man. Nobody has said it "destroys gut health," generally. Certainly, for some individuals, 'destroyed guts' are the reality they face, but the reasons are varied and a diet very low in fermentable fiber is probably only one of them. Problem is, what happens when you combine that with antibiotic use? Is it plausible that SAD dieters fair better with rounds of antibiotics because, in spite of all the crap, they still get substantially more fermentable fiber? I know everyone likes simple answers, but it's looking more complex to me every day, so I just go with it.
[Tempted to delve into the increased Bacteroides and decreased Firmicutes study he cherry picks as a cause, when it's merely an effect. Besides, Hadza tend to have a mix of B/F associated with obesity, and I'm big on falsification of causal phenomena. Saves time.]
"But yet again, there’s a lot of hype and hysteria that accompanies these bold proclamations that are not backed by any sound scientific data proving it to be 100% accurate."
Translation: Falsification of fanciful notions that the natural state of humanity is a hormonal cascade modeling starvation isn't proved to 100% accuracy. Haven't proved the negative to 100% accuracy; an impossibility, a-priori.
Probably—just WA-guessing—you might want to eat a diet of a variety of real foods in a natural, moderate carbohydrate setting. It's not "100% proved to be scientifically accurate;" it's only what 99.9% of the 120 billion of your progeny did to survive and have offspring.
#3: Proponents of ketogenic diets think EVERYONE should be eating that way as a one-size-fits-all approach. "This one is nothing more than a blatant lie intended to paint people who support ketosis with a broad brush as being overly dogmatic. But as perhaps one of the most vocal proponents of a ketogenic diet today, I cannot help but laugh at how nonsensical this myth really is. Anyone who has heard my many recent appearances on a multitude of podcasts promoting Keto Clarity in the past month, again and again you have heard me state quite clearly that a ketogenic diet is not necessarily for everyone."
Ketogenic deits are necessarily restrictive. In a moderate carb setting, you have a world of varied vegetation at your foot. Good luck, Jimmy. You deal with perhaps a few million anecdotes. I'll deal with 120 billion anecdotes including the historical/anthropological record; and we're still all alive, pumping out babies.
Methinks thou doth protest too much.
#4: It’s dangerous for a woman who wants to improve fertility to be in ketosis. "One of the newer arguments being hurled at low-carb, high-fat, ketogenic diets (and it was especially exclaimed in several of the lectures given at last month’s Ancestral Health Symposium in Berkeley, California) targets women of childbearing age and issues stern threats that great harm will come to them and their baby if they even dare get anywhere close to making ketones in their body."
Uh, all humans make ketones in their bodies, all the time... (straw man, again)
This one happens to be the very thing that got me beginning to rethink things a long time back. Being fertile or infertile is, in itself, very fucking sound scientific data in a human context. And very especially for a young woman. It's tantamount to human-fucking-survival. So there I was, blogging in 2008, 9, 10; I was all giddy about high fat, VLC, and fasting and working out at the end of a fast...and I have woman commenters in their 20s who've lost their periods. Uh, sorry? Or, uh, sorry yo'r ohn yo'r o'n?
Everyone knows I'm a cunt-shaming asshole; but I will never, ever knowingly bring harm to someone and I got a sense that the way I was advocating was harming people and hey: if you're harming 20-something girls, what in the holy mother of fuck are you doing?
Hey, sorry. I get thousands of comments and I read even single one. It's a weird thing for me, weird like my forever position on abortion: It's not my business. Don't interfere, but never do harm. And, I'm not a woman. The kind of male hubris that scoffs at particular female issues is the kind of male hubris I can do without. Plus, women are an endless steam of ridiculous in other stuff, so why have to conquer everything?
I mostly trust women to be very cool, when you just back the fuck off and don't pretend you know their physiologic experience, and especially, never make light of it. ...How would you like to bleed from your cock once per month and worse: naturally freak out if it doesn't happen?
#5: There is no harm to health produced by consuming real, whole foods that are starchy or sugary. "The argument has been made that if you opt for whole food sources of carbohydrates such as white rice, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, fruits and honey, for example, they are perfectly fine to make you into the healthy, fit, physical specimen you desire to be. If only it were true. While I’m sure the Kitavans and other traditional people groups (the ones most frequently cited by pro-carb Paleo enthusiasts as their evidence) undoubtedly did perfectly fine eating upwards of 40 percent of their diet from these carbohydrate-based real, whole foods, the fact is they didn’t live in a world chock full of abundant processed, highly-refined sugary and grainy food-like products that can wreak havoc and lead to great challenges on the weight and health of the people who consume them."
I give up. Jimmy, hopefully you can see the inanity of that paragraph, isolated. It's just simply best left up there with no comment, so people can see it for what it is.
Even Parisians Feel Embarrassed for Their Fellows
#6: Ketosis is not a normal state our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have been in on a regular basis. "How you define what “normal” is will determine whether this myth is valid or not. If you mean it’s a metabolic state our hunter-gatherer ancestors were in 100% of the time throughout their lifetime, then I don’t think that is true about a state of ketosis. But if by normal you are referring to it being a natural part of the ebb and flow of how they lived their lives between big animal kills, then ABSOLUTELY!"
So, he leads off with a hedge. Well, of course, because even Jimmy knows (see right exactly above) that a ketogenic diet in perpetuity, chronically, with people poking themselves and breathing into tubes is...well...fucktarded.
And so I must ask: If it's not the state one is designed to be in 100% of the time, then:
What is the number? For instance, any evidence of like, Blue Zone, longest lived peoples who never spent a day-in-life in ketosis?
And if it's not a required state, then why all the needless expense with meters, testing strips, and now reverse vaping? Hey: entrepreneurial idea: collect all the breath ketones from those pipes, bottle and sell it for the vaping industry as "bad breath."
I'll put it my way: You an HG mofo, and your wife is starving, she's in solid ketosis. You wake up in the morning, she turns her pretty face to you, smiles, and exhales.
...You goin' huntin', yo, mofo!
Disrupting Paleo: Inuit and Masai Ate Carbs and Prebiotics, Part 1
Disrupting Paleo: Inuit and Masai Ate Carbs and Prebiotics, Part 2
To Reiterate, Just In Case You Missed It: No Elevated Ketone Levels in the Inuit
More Uncovering of the Inuit Myth: Stefansson and Anderson Belleview Experiement; Compromised Glucose Tolerance
What Did Indigenous People Inhabiting the Coldest Places on Earth Really Eat?
The New Nutritional Starvation Diet
#7: If you’re an athlete, don’t you dare eat a low-carb, high-fat diet or your performance will tank. "And finally, we come to the myth that is becoming increasingly laughable with all the growing number of especially endurance athletes who are embracing a low-carb, high-fat, ketogenic diet to ENHANCE their athletic training and performance."
Wishful thinking. Relying on outliers when in circles comprised of competitive millionaire athletes, diet = millions $$$ profit. There is not only little, but zero confusion. In competitive athletics, rapidly digesting energy will always outcompete slow, long-haul survival approaches. This is how dumb, in failure to make distinctions.
This is really a dumb ploy in terms of VLC advocacy. But, it does signal the just-so, belief-is-power nature of it. It's the most Dunning-Kruker aspect (too inept to recognize inept). So cocksure, they're willing to laf, just-so, at enterprises whose billions rely opon competitiveness in diet, nutrition, and training.
Let's have a football team win the SuperBowl in an all-ketogenic state; because in obvious fact, all super bowls have been won very carbed up, on average.
...Again, so fucktarded to go after athletes on this. Signals the very highly religious nature of VLC/Ketogenic.
Dessert, from the comments.
Listen to the podcast with Dr. Rosedale because he theorizes why your blood sugar goes down consuming resistant starch--and it's not necessarily a good thing.
Last night when I read this and was lafing, I emailed Duck. Look: there's more than 100 posts on this blog about resistant starch, over 10,000 comments and apparently, Rosedale already knows everything and Jimmy loves it because he's an authority towards absolution over the same sin.
Well, lets begin with a comment Duck posted, still in moderation.
Here's Duck's stream of consciousness in the moment, last night:
~~~
What a tool...
He and Jimmy challenge the audience to go out and test their post prandial insulin after consuming RS. Never mind that researchers have already looked into this and came to opposite conclusions:
Consumption of Both Resistant Starch and ß-Glucan Improves Postprandial Plasma Glucose and Insulin in Women
Rosedale is making things up on the spot. Do Livinlavidalowcarb listeners really just have no idea how to look this stuff up?
Rosedale also recommends people get their fiber from "cellulose" to avoid glucose. Unfortunately, he's oblivious to the fact that few humans have the gut bugs to degrade cellulose:
From: The cellulose-degrading microbial community of the human gut varies according to the presence or absence of methanogens
Attempts to elucidate the cellulose-degrading microbial community have only been partially successful as only a restricted number of individuals appear to harbour such cellulose-degrading organisms (Bétian et al., 1977; Montgomery, 1988; Wedekind et al., 1988)”
Rosedale is still clinging to the overly-simplistic idea that Candida will somehow magically disappear on a low carb diet and that it just eats glucose. Nope. The scientific literature no longer supports that obsolete recommendation. Quoting from Gestalt's excellent post here:
The following 1st paper shows that the ketone beta-hydroxybutyrate will feed candida, and the 2nd shows that the ketone Aceoacetate is used by Candida to evade the body’s immune system. The 3rd shows that starvation makes candida grow exponentially.
The ability to neutrophils from diabetics to kill candida was inhibited by increased concentrations of glucose and beta-hydroxybutyrate, both independently and in combination.
These data indicate that although phagocytosis occurs at similar levels in diabetics and controls, killing of candida by the diabetic neutrophil is impaired under conditions of hyperglycaemia and ketosis.” (reference)
Therefore, prolonged ketosis may be a significant risk factor for candidiasis. This study was undertaken to investigate whether C. albicans itself produces a ketotic metabolite as a virulence factor which can effectively undermine host defense by neutrophils.” (source)
Starvation of yeast cells induces exponentially grown cells (and usually non-germinative) to germinate. This phenomenon is also observed in cells that are transiently treated with metabolic inhibitors. During each of these treatments (starvation, metabolic inhibition), expression of a growth regulatory gene (CGRI) increases. Candida albicans: adherence, signaling and virulence.” Calderone et al. (source)
Glucose obviously feeds candida as well however I have not seen evidence that it impairs immunity against candida such as ketones. Glucose therefore appears to be the lesser of two evils in this case when compared to ketones. From a blood point of view it’s impossible to eliminate glucose anyways. Ketogenic diets and many Paleo diets therefore in the long term are counter-productive. Starch and specifically resistant starch is necessary to feed the good guys which are your primary defense against candida.
I've since compiled a fair amount of evidence showing that a moderate carb diet of starch works best to inactivate candida. Meanwhile, Rosedale just professes outdated and over-simplistic recommendations and his gullible listeners just eat it up.
How do people listen to such fabrications that don't match up with the scientific literature? Any excuse to avoid exogenous glucose, I suppose.
~~~
Well, my only experience with Rosedale was being on hand for his appearance on the starch panel hosted by Jimmy at AHS11, erroneously dumbed (not a typo) "safe." He was an embarrassment to humanity and I'm not the only one who thought that.
Rosedale is a has-been fucktard who absolutely will not face the 2014 quotidian reality. I have a half dozen commenters who would have his ass on currency of awareness of literature alone.
As for Jimmy, having a podcast as he does is a double-edged sword. One edge is edge. The other is way dull, "I'm Doktor X-Authority." Rosedale, et al.
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Related posts:
Long Term Very Low Carb and Ketogenic Diets = Bad News
Australian Catalyst: Gut Reaction; It Signals The End of VLC and Ketogenic Diets For Everyone
All Diets Are High-Fat Diets
PhD Physical Chemist Commenter Marie is at it Again! Resistant Starch and Ketosis. Low Carb in Short Pants
Clearing The Air: My Beef With The So-Called “‘Healthy’ Low Carb Lifestyle”
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