Today we return to Examine.com and a summary of a rather irrelevant study. Still it shows how toxic carbohydrates are and the sad state of “nutrition science” as no one seems to be able to connect the dots.
Quick Summary
In this 1-day randomized crossover trial, a team of researchers investigated the independent acute metabolic effect of carbohydrate restriction at varying energy levels on twelve people.
First, let’s establish the crucial fact that humans are obligate hyper carnivores. We are made to consume animal-based food only, as in animal protein and animal fat, which means any kind of meat and organ meats from animals and their produce such as eggs and the occasional raw milk. Humans are not made to consume carbohydrates, as we already produce our own glucose through gluconeogenesis. However, as most humans have been deceived like gullible children to consume such slave garbage, their metabolism has been severely damaged. Thus, as anyone should know, simply switching to a low-carb or ketogenic diet requires quite significant metabolic changes and repair to take place in the body. Depending on how much damage you have accumulated from consuming the wrong kinds of food, as in anything plant-based and processed, this metabolic change can take anywhere from 12 weeks to 26 weeks or more. Simply upregulating gluconeogenesis to work again can take 5 to 6 weeks, and getting fat adapted, as in effectively using fat as energy to really perform at your best can take 16 to 26 weeks, or even up to a year or more.
So, a one day observational study on a change in diet is totally useless as to see any health benefits or real changes in cardiometabolic health. With that being said, it can still show the initial changes in the body’s metabolism when carbohydrates are suddenly restricted, and that was what the researchers looked at. Still, observing these markers to previous readings in a group for 26 weeks or more would have presented a lot more useful data.
Key study details
“The 12 participants (average age of 27; average BMI of 25) followed 3 diets for 1 day each:
- High-carbohydrate: A eucaloric diet providing 55% of calories as carbohydrates
- Ketogenic: A eucaloric diet providing 50 grams of carbohydrates
- Ketogenic + caloric restriction: A hypocaloric diet (75% energy deficit) providing 50 grams of carbohydrates”
And here we have a problem right from the start. 50 grams of carbohydrates is not a real ketogenic diet. It is a half-assed “low-carb” diet. So, whatever readings they would get will be much less representative of actual changes from a switch to a real ketogenic diet which is less than 20 grams of carbohydrates a day, preferably close to zero grams.
With that being said, if we look at the full paper study, the researchers actually called them a “normal carbohydrate, energy-balanced diet” (nEB, 55% CHO), a “low-carbohydrate, energy-balanced diet” (LCEB, 50 g/day CHO), and a “low-carbohydrate, energy-restricted diet” (LC25, 50 g/day CHO with 75% energy restriction.)
So, it was the asshats at Examine.com, who in their poor summary, chose to call the low-carb diets “ketogenic diets.”
“The diets contained about 0.8 to 1.0 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. There was a 5-day washout period between the diets.”
This is a very low amount of protein, unhealthily so. But it is often used in short-time studies to remove the thermogenic impact of protein, its impact on satiety, and the likelihood of protein being converted to glucose.
So, as this was simply a one-day intervention, it does not matter.
“After the interventions, blood samples were taken while fasting and after a liquid test meal. A few hours later, the participants consumed an ad libitum lunch. Calorie intake was assessed during lunch and over the remainder of the day.
Calorie intake did not differ between the conditions. There were no differences between the ketogenic diets.”
It’s important to note that all food items for the dietary intervention days, including the lead-in dinner, were prepared and personally supplied to the participants. To maintain unbiased appetite measurements and minimize impacts on digestive and metabolic systems, the study’s menu kept a consistent visual appearance. Meal compositions remained the same, adjusting only portion sizes for different calorie groups. For low-carbohydrate diets, visually similar substitutes like cauliflower rice instead of rice were used.
“The participants consuming a ketogenic diet increased fat oxidation at rest while reducing postprandial triglycerides and free fatty acids and increasing postprandial blood glucose.”
Not a ketogenic diet, a “low-carb” diet. And fat oxidation, as in the process by which the body breaks down fatty acids to produce energy will of course increase as there is less elevated blood glucose that needs to be eliminated and used as energy from the idiotic act of consuming carbohydrates. That also means less triglycerides, as there will not be as much excess toxic glucose from carbohydrates being converted into triglycerides and stored in fat cells as protection of tissues and for later use.
And free fatty acids derived from the food will of course go down as they are used as energy. However, in someone consuming carbohydrates which converts to glucose, the elevated levels of glucose must be dealt with first as they are extremely toxic and damaging to all our soft tissues and organs, and while blood glucose is elevated, fatty acids are not utilized as fuel and simply sits around in the blood until blood glucose is back to normal. So, if you eat less carbohydrates or none at all, fatty acids will be more readily used for fuel and their other metabolic functions.
And blood glucose would of course increase in all of the groups after a meal (postprandial,) as all of the diets in this study still provided carbohydrates.
Normally, after a true ketogenic meal, as in only fat and some protein, blood glucose does not increase but remains stable, as it should in a healthy human following his or her species-appropriate diet (as blood glucose is controlled by your body depending on need through gluconeogenesis.)
However, in metabolically unhealthy people, as these obese people in this study, protein can also contribute to a slight increase in glucose levels as these people are poorly fat adapted and they have trouble providing glucose through gluconeogenesis if carbohydrates are suddenly restricted. As we covered earlier, it can take up to 6 weeks for gluconeogenesis to regain its full functionality once you switch back to our natural diet and start to heal.
Now, there were more small and interesting changes documented in the full paper, which Examine.com simply ignored, or they did not read the full study but only the abstract and made a summary from that limited information (which would be very unprofessional.)
The low-carbohydrate, energy-restricted diet also resulted in a significantly higher fasting GLP-1 levels compared to nEB (p = 0.03.) GLP-1 helps control blood sugar levels and promotes feelings of fullness.
The researchers summarized their study by saying, “our study demonstrated that carbohydrate restriction, both with and without energy restriction induces short-term changes in fasted and postprandial glucose and lipid metabolism, along with similar effects on appetite measurements and subsequent energy compensation in healthy overweight/obese adults.”
And to the abstract, they added, “these findings demonstrate that carbohydrate restriction, without altering energy intake, can elicit effects similar to those observed in short-term fasting. As such we propose a strategy of repeated carbohydrate restriction cycles alone may be an emerging alternative approach for the enhancement of cardiometabolic health, warranting further investigation.”
Examine.com’s take
“The findings should be considered with caution due to the small sample size and short duration. Some of the results may not be indicative of the longer-term effects of a ketogenic diet.”
Again, it was not a ketogenic diet, it was a low-carb diet. A true ketogenic diet is more similar to our natural human diet, as in only consuming animal fats and protein.
And the results will only get better with time, as it mimics our true species-appropriate diet and we are constructed to run on a fat metabolism where we can produce glucose as we need it.
Again, if you consume carbohydrates, you artificially elevate blood glucose above its natural and safe levels, which in turn makes it very toxic to all soft tissues and organs, inflicting damage — damage that eventually manifests itself as cardiovascular diseases and what we call diabetes.
Of course, all this is exacerbated in the presence of plant-based seed/vegetable oils, as I covered in-depth in my article “Cholesterol Levels Respond To Accumulated Damage — A Complete Guide To Cholesterol And All The Damage Done By Carbohydrates And Seed/Vegetable Oils.”
What this study does show is that simply lowering carbohydrates for a day improves fat oxidation, GLP-1 and triglyceride levels, something we already knew. But if it can get more unbiased researchers to look into low-carb or ketogenic alternatives, all the better.
If you need help with any kind of health problems or transitioning from your current way of eating to our natural species-appropriate, species-specific way of eating, I’m available for both coaching and consultation.
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