New member intro

Newcomer introductions, personal anecdotes, caregiver issues, lab results, and n=1 experimentation.
Sgl9x
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Re: New member intro

Post by Sgl9x »

Fiver,

I'm not an athlete... Bradycardia is just a problem I have. I asked my doctor about it but he wasn't worried.

I don't have a thyroid issue unless it is sub clinical. No meds

Thanks, I'll check out the link but I have heard this before as well.
Sgl9x
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Re: New member intro

Post by Sgl9x »

mike,

It could relate to brain fog this time but other times it happened, I didn't have diarrhea. I'm 6 feet and 175 lbs. I get between 1500 and 2000 calories a day. I think dairy may be a trigger food but not sure yet. It has saturated fat, and once I get over the brain fog, I'll go back not eating coconut oil and MCT as well. My cholesterol is a bit high and would like to reduce the sat fat since I'm Apoe 4/4.

Bradycardia is just a slow heart rate... most average people have 60 beats per minute resting unless you are an athlete.
mike
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Re: New member intro

Post by mike »

Sgl9x wrote:mike,

It could relate to brain fog this time but other times it happened, I didn't have diarrhea. I'm 6 feet and 175 lbs. I get between 1500 and 2000 calories a day. I think dairy may be a trigger food but not sure yet. It has saturated fat, and once I get over the brain fog, I'll go back not eating coconut oil and MCT as well. My cholesterol is a bit high and would like to reduce the sat fat since I'm Apoe 4/4.

Bradycardia is just a slow heart rate... most average people have 60 beats per minute resting unless you are an athlete.
It says here https://www.livestrong.com/article/3193 ... n-100-lbs/ that you should have between 2100 and 2450 calories if you are 6 feet... Are you sure you are eating enough? Even if you are not losing weight, you could be starving your brain...
Sonoma Mike
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Sgl9x
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Re: New member intro

Post by Sgl9x »

mike,

Problem is I don't want to eat that much fat. I only eat about 360 calories of protein and 60 to 80 calories of carbs. That would mean eating 1600+ calories of fat. I would have to chug olive oil to get that. But I hear you and will look at that possibility.

Thanks
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Re: New member intro

Post by Sgl9x »

mike

If I'm not mistaken, the brain takes precedence over energy coming in to the body. I don't know if this will cause brain fog, unless I was eating 500 calories a day.
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Re: New member intro

Post by mike »

Yes and no. It is not fully understood, but the brain communicates with the rest of the body. When glucose is low, muscles will not use the available glucose and will use ketones instead. Glucose crosses the blood brain barrier without need of insulin via the Glut1 transporter and then into neurons via the Glut3 transporter which actually attracts glucose. So no insulin needed for the brain to use glucose. In that sense, the brain does take priority. However, the amount of glucose in the brain in the short term is linearly related to the amount of glucose in the body. It will always be less than what is in the body, and it also means that if you cut glucose by 20% in the body, it will go down 20% in the brain as well. The are a number of research studies coming out now that show that folks likely to get AD (ApoE4s, etc) show decreased vascular systems in the brain and lower glucose metabolism. It's not known exactly what causes this yet. If the body can not maintain the brain at its full buildout, then it starts to cut back. If you are not losing weight, and you are consuming too few calories, then the brain is likely not getting enough energy (glucose + ketones) and will start to lose neurons.
Sonoma Mike
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Re: New member intro

Post by NF52 »

Sgl9x wrote:...
The only problem is the brain fog is constant when I have it. When it goes away, I never have it. All or none....
Hi again Steve,

I dug out two posts from Stavia, the physician with ApoE 4/4 who wrote our Primer, about the individual differences that occur on diets. The first is from December 2017; the second from June 2018. (I took the liberty of highlighting a few sentences I really like.) This is her take on what is a healthy diet:
Stavia wrote: "healthy balanced diet"
That's the nubbin of it - in my view nobody has successfully defined a universal absolute version...I have just read member A's post, who said they were unwell on a vegan diet and improved on LCHF and then I read member B's post, where they felt healthier on a low fat, high carb vegan diet.
Everyone has their version of what constitutes a healthy diet and it certainly isn't consistent.
Balance - now who decides where the fulcrum is? Again I posit that it's individual and there is no absolute fulcrum.

Which leads me to believe the concept of a perfect diet does not exist.
Rather, a range of possibilities that may or may not suit different people.

I keep being reminded of Akira Kurosawa's movie Rashomon. Four versions of an event. All valid. The absence of an absolute truth.

And this in response to members striving for better biomarkers and asking about "cheats":
When I get overwhelmed and exhausted and there is no food at home and I've been working for 12 hrs straight for days I fall off the wagon. Blue cheese and caramelized onion pizza. Made me feel better for exactly 10 minutes ;)

We are human honey. Its impossible for most of us to be perfect all the time...
I've aimed at getting to a place where my diet is within a range of parameters and I don't track anymore. Its not a rigid range. I believe that we are evolved to thrive on a wide range of macronutrients... we say in Medicine - treat the patient not the (blood test) number. And its always, always about context
So as a layperson with no diagnostic qualifications, I would say that longstanding bradycardia as a non-high level athlete, intermittent, but persistent brain fog, and diarrhea lasting 30 days sounds like your body pleading for some individual variation. Whether that means your brain is exquisitely sensitive to carbs and gets a glucose/insulin rush remembering the "good old days" of high carb meals after even a small "cheat", or whether your system is saying "we're a hybrid, not a Tesla and we need a slightly higher and steady supply of carbs here along with healthy fats" I can't say. But I do remember Stavia suggesting that it's reasonable for some people (and recommended by Dr. Bredesen) to reduce added sugars drastically, but to keep carbs at around 50 grams a day. Obviously that's not a ketogenic diet. But it might be worth a trial experiment on yourself to see if it's your personal best diet.
4/4 and still an optimist!
Sgl9x
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Re: New member intro

Post by Sgl9x »

NF52,

Unfortunately, I am sensitive to carbs. When I eat 50 grams, I gain fat weight. (no matter what kind of carbs)

I was a vegetarian before keto for 2.5 years and got pre-diabetes.

The diarrhea came from twice frozen butter, and I didn't realize it was frozen twice. Or it was because I increased my saturated fat a day by a factor of 2.

It is a lot better now.
Last edited by Sgl9x on Thu May 30, 2019 1:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sgl9x
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Re: New member intro

Post by Sgl9x »

mike wrote:Yes and no. It is not fully understood, but the brain communicates with the rest of the body. When glucose is low, muscles will not use the available glucose and will use ketones instead. Glucose crosses the blood brain barrier without need of insulin via the Glut1 transporter and then into neurons via the Glut3 transporter which actually attracts glucose. So no insulin needed for the brain to use glucose. In that sense, the brain does take priority. However, the amount of glucose in the brain in the short term is linearly related to the amount of glucose in the body. It will always be less than what is in the body, and it also means that if you cut glucose by 20% in the body, it will go down 20% in the brain as well. The are a number of research studies coming out now that show that folks likely to get AD (ApoE4s, etc) show decreased vascular systems in the brain and lower glucose metabolism. It's not known exactly what causes this yet. If the body can not maintain the brain at its full buildout, then it starts to cut back. If you are not losing weight, and you are consuming too few calories, then the brain is likely not getting enough energy (glucose + ketones) and will start to lose neurons.
Thanks for the explanation mike. I'll try eating more fat for calories.
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Re: New member intro

Post by mike »

Sgl9x wrote:Thanks for the explanation mike. I'll try eating more fat for calories.
Based on your first post here, where you say you are eating about 20 g carbs, 90 g protein, 150 g fat, that comes out to 1790 calories, with carbs being 6%, protein being 19% and fat being 75%. For your height, you should likely be eating more protein to maintain your lean body mass, and your fat % is already up there, so I would add protein instead of fat. If you were to add 25 g more of protein, that would be another 100 calories. As NF52 said, everyone is individual when it comes to diet. Give this a test for a week and see how you feel, and take fasting blood sugar to see how that is affected.
Sonoma Mike
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