I’m currently in the midst of an experiment for fat loss and body recomposition using a variation of a cyclic ketogenic diet called the Carb Nite Solution, which essentially has me in ketosis for the entire week with a single day where I am required to do an aggressive carb re-load within a window of 6-8 hrs.
I wanted to provide an update on the effects of this diet on prurigo pigmentosa, which is the rash that many of us have discovered appears when we are in a state of ketosis.… Read More
I was flipping through a medical journal just skimming things when this article popped up: Ketogenic Diet Aids Cancer Patient’s Sensitivity to Radiation, Chemotherapy.
Folks at Iowa University are looking into the effect of a ketogenic diet on patients with pancreatic cancer or lung cancer to see if it improves outcomes after radiation and chemotherapy.
They discuss the idea that cancer cells prefer to run on glucose as fuel and in the setting of a ketogenic diet, when they are deprived of glucose, they become weakened and more susceptible to therapy.… Read More
Great article by Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple, a blog I follow daily, discussing potential reasons for elevated LDL in people who eat Primal (a paleo low carb variation). Potential explanations include:
An interesting point is his description of the role iodine and thyroid hormone plays in the expression of LDL receptors and subsequently LDL-C which pretty much is in line with everything I’ve been reading about.… Read More
During my most recent cholesterol blood work, I also checked my thyroid hormone levels in an effort to figure out why my cholesterol has gotten so high while I’ve been in nutritional ketosis.
One of the possible explanations was that:
Chronic low carb -> Hypothyroidism (low T3) -> Decreased expression of LDL receptors in the liver -> Higher serum cholesterol
Background – Here is an oversimplified explanation of thyroid physiology
As you can see with my cholesterol numbers, despite cutting back on my saturated fats for 3 weeks by restricting the amount of coconut oil and grassfed butter that I typically eat, my LDL-C and Total Cholesterol have continued to go up!
Here is a brief summary of potential explanation as to why LDL and total cholesterol can be elevated in people who are in ketosis from Part 2:
So it looks like I’ve eliminated #1 as a potential explanation. … Read More
After 90 days of nutritional ketosis, I managed to reach a new low in weight, only to see it bounce back up. I’m now only 1.6 lbs down from my starting weight of 180.0 lbs. Seeing a graph like this really shows how variable daily weights can be!
In the past 30 days, I spent 21 days over the minimal cut off of 0.5 mmol which I’m happy with. This is a little worse compared to days 31-60 where I was in ketosis for 25 days. … Read More