bikerman wrote:If asymptomatic, is the keto diet really necessary? Are there any known risks of the keto diet, such as gut health or missing out on certain types of nutrients? Are there any drawbacks to not including whole grains in our diets?
In 2017, I attended Low Carb USA in San Diego and one of the presentations was provided by Dr Georgia Ede entitled, "Preventing Alzheimer's is Easier than you think. How Sugar affects the brain" Unfortunately it is not available on the web without paying for it, but in the presentation she posited a sort of dietary spectrum depending how healthy a person is with regard to insulin resistance, it made a lot of sense to me. As one progresses down this ladder, she proposed that the diet get stricter. Do recognize that a person is asymptomatic through most of these steps. She also said that by the time symptoms start to become noticeable, our precious hippocampus in the brain (responsible for memory) has atrophied 10%. The progression of Alzheimer's takes decades.
Healthy – Clean, Whole, Real Foods Diet
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Mildly Insulin Resistant – Low Carb, High (good) Fat diet
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Moderately Insulin Resistant – Low Carb, High (good) Fat diet, a little stricter
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Mild Cognitive Impairment – Ketogenic diet
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Alzheimer’s Disease – Strict Ketogenic diet
Unfortunately, with today’s modern diet, a great number of folks have insulin resistance (IR) and don’t know it, their blood sugar tests normal (which just means the IR hasn’t progressed to Type 2 diabetes). Regrettably if a person’s blood sugar is normal, the doctor stops there. If the blood sugar reading is abnormal, the doctor will often do an oral glucose tolerance test, but that’s an incomplete diagnostic tool since it does not include an insulin assay. In other words we could be identifying and preventing insulin resistance, thus reducing MANY chronic diseases not just Alzheimer's, but our doctors don't understand insulin resistance and don't test for it early enough. But I digress…
Risks of keto diet? In my opinion, it depends on how you do it. Some folks who follow a keto diet consume too much animal protein and don’t include vegetables. Quality of food is important, so much food is grain fed, not organic, genetically modified, hormone laden, filled with preservatives or refined vegetable oils. Yes, a keto diet can be unhealthy.
But ketones are known to burn cleaner and more efficiently and reduce inflammation all those are good things for an ApoEε4 in addition to providing a source of fuel for the brain in addition to glucose.
Are there any drawbacks to not including whole grains in our diets?
There are mixed studies about whole grain, good for you and bad for you. All I know is Dr Bredesen recommends eliminating high gluten foods and in addition to eliminating grain foods, whole grains are particularly insidious, they contain Wheat Germ Agglutinin. In the book, The Plant Paradox by Dr Steven Gundry, he discusses Wheat Germ Agglutinin (WGA). It is a very tiny protein that can penetrate even the tight junctures of a healthy, non-leaky gut. It then binds to the insulin receptors of our muscles and brains blocking them. Our brain needs these insulin receptors to utilize glucose, the brain cannot run on ketones alone.