Low-carb 'keto' diet ('Atkins-style') may modestly improve cognition in older adults

In a pilot study of 14 older adults with mild cognitive problems suggestive of early Alzheimer's disease, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report that a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet may improve brain function and memory.

"Our early findings suggest that perhaps we don't need to cut carbs as strictly as we initially tried. We may eventually see the same beneficial effects by adding a ketone supplement that would make the diet easier to follow," says Jason Brandt, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "It's something that 400-plus experimental drugs haven't been able to do in clinical trials."

Brandt explains that, typically, the brain uses the sugar glucose—a product of carbohydrate breakdown—as a primary fuel. However, research has shown that in the early stage of Alzheimer's disease the brain isn't able to efficiently use glucose as an energy source. Some experts, he says, even refer to Alzheimer's as "type 3 diabetes."

Using brain scans that show energy use, researchers have also found that ketones—chemicals formed during the breakdown of dietary fat—can be used as an alternative energy source in the brains of healthy people and those with mild cognitive impairment. For example, when a person is on a ketogenic diet, consisting of lots of fat and very few sugars and starches, the brain and body use ketones as an energy source instead of carbs.

When comparing the results of tests of delayed recall—the ability to recollect something they were told or shown a few minutes earlier—those who stuck to the modified Atkins diet improved by a couple of points on average (about 15% of the total score), whereas those who didn't follow the diet on average dropped a couple of points.

What’s wrong with “undereating”?

I understand it’s a way of life, and not a fad or something that can be abandoned once weight goals are met.

It looks to me intermittent fasting is the most effective way to burn fat, which is ultimately the only way to lose weight.

Skipping breakfast is easy. Drink black coffee. Skipping lunch is easy, too. Then a moderate meal around 5 or 6 PM. Is 3 to 5 pounds a week weight loss realistic?

I like pizza and hash browns and pasta. If I restrict calories, it _looks_ like we can eat whatever we want, in moderation. I’m prepared to be wrong.

I’m not out to torture myself, I just don’t want to dink around. My cynical theory is there are lot of special interests and big corporations who don’t want millions of people skipping breakfast and lunch, for one thing. And they sure as hell don’t want people cutting back on chips and soda. The profit margins are humongous.

And it will wind up killing millions, pretty soon now.

You’ve got to burn all the glucose out of your system, your body makes the shift to burning fat. You stay in that mode and the hunger will go away. I cannot recommend MCT oil powder for your coffee highly enough.

Doing your fasting bit is great, but I’d wait until you get to ketosis. At that point IntFast works so much better because your body actually CONTINUES TO EAT. Only this time, you are eating stores of fat instead of the food in your stomach.

If you try IntFast without being on Ketosis, you will do exactly what you just did - binge on carbs and set yourself back.

Saying that, there is keto friendly bread, keto friendly bagels, keto friendly pie crust. My GF made me a keto friendly chocolate cake that was every single bit as good as a regular carb-laden chocolate cake.

Simply Keto is the book I started out with. First half is the story of this lady’s life, second is a sane set of meal plans and recipes.

KetoConnect has a website and youtube videos. By far they have got the ‘replace all the comfort/craving foods you used to have off of keto’ thing down.

This is the entire trick - replace all the stuff you loved off of keto with analogs/upgrades that do not have carbs in them (besides the fiber carbs - they are the good carbs).

Every now and then I lapse, and have a pizza. Feel like garbage immediately after. Carbs are killers, the bad ones anyway. So not good for you at all.

Keto ‘flu’ is real, and remedied with salt and potassium.

Good luck. If you need anything reach out. My buddy has lost 110 lbs and kept it off for a year. Eats chocolate, pizza, pasta, cake, cookies, candy, etc. None of it has carbs that are bad (less than 20g a day).

This has been known in medical circles since the 1950’s too. Criminal how carbs were foisted on us by ‘food pyramids’.

Right, but what I’m reading is ketosis is reached around 12 hours of fasting. I figure a 16/8 routine isn’t too tough, it hasn’t been so far. So far I have way more energy, sleep better, and clears out the head. I’m using Morton’s light salt that has potassium to get some salt electrolytes. I load up on water before mowing the lawn or whatever. One day a week I’ll do a 24 hour fast.

A ketogenic diet takes longer. When I “broke” my routine last night, in any event I still don’t expect I exceeded 2000 calories for the day. That’s still pretty low overall.

It’s kind of strange not worrying about food for most of the day. What to have, where to get it, prepare it, clean up. And what I do eat, is much more appreciated I’ll say that much. I just gotta get rid of the gut. I figure in 6 months it should be a lot better. Just have to stay with it, and have a little discipline.

Under eating just is not really that healthy and NOT something that can be maintained over a longer period of time, plus, why be miserable (hungry), its not worth it. You don’t need to bomb your metabolism, let it seek its own level by eating a healthy nutritious meal.
Most, not all, but MOST people have a problem with insulin resistance. You can control this one (or both combined) ways,
1: eating low glycemic foods, lots of Veg, moderate protein and a lot of healthy fats.
2: intermittent fasting, reducing the amount of time in a day that your insulin is flowing.
So, one or both those options will help you to become fat adapted, ie: burn fat as your main fuel source vs glucose.

No,3-5 lbs a week is not realistic in any sense, at all. 2lbs/week, which is what I can, have,and, am able to do is considered pretty much tops. In the past I’ve done 2.5/week for the initial weight loss, and then leveled to 2.
Again, if you are going to “restrict” Kcals, you are torturing yourself. Eating Primal/Paleo/Keto; will restrict Kcals somewhat by virtue of the reductions of “empty” carbs,ie; bread, chips pasta, cookies, cake,etc,etc.

Calories are important, but not as important as getting rid of the carbs.

One way to be sure you’re in ketosis is to either test your blood or urine. I use the urine strips because they’re cheaper and doesn’t involve bloodshed.

It is true you can get to ketosis through fasting. Again, better if you got to ketosis through diet, and then stayed there because you started fasting - primarily because you weren’t hungry.

I appreciate the advice. I really do. What is “undereating” though? Let’s define our terms.

An adult male needs 3600 calories (roughly) when working outside, heavy work all day. That’s about what the .mil plans for, too. I don’t know what my basal metabolic rate is, but it must be somewhere around 2,000 to 2,500?

But I don’t want to count calories every meal. Or at least it’s a lot easier to just count them for a single daily meal. Plus I noticed the one meal I eat, I’m not really as hungry as I thought I’d be. Maybe should split it into two meals within the window.

The arithmetic works for me. If I do a 16/8 and keep the calories down when I do eat, I’m going to lose weight every week, there’s no way around it. I’m just a simple guy trying to do a simple job. This seems to be the least complicated way.

That’s what I didn’t expect. I’ve long noticed that when I ate a big carb meal towards evening, I was starving by breakfast, which didn’t make any sense to me. If I skipped breakfast, it was even worse, stomach really protesting.

But when I do the routine now, I don’t really notice that much discomfort. Really strange.

Last night my body was craving sugar though pretty bad. Very much like quitting smoking, my body was “buzzing” and it’s all I could think about.

Are raw carrot okay as far as carbs? I like raw carrot for some reason. They taste pretty sweet though.

Clarity: The opposite of one extreme...is another extreme.

I wrote a 5000-something word article on keto but will not share it here.

It’s complicated. But confirmation bias being what it is (coupled with SEO)...people do what makes them feel good despite all the warnings.

SO...don’t say no one ever warned anyone here at FR about the dangers of keto. I don’t have the time to spell it out, so to those who are keto cheerleaders or enthusiastic adopters:

Use that tool in front of you and exercise your Boolean skills.

1000Kcal for the day is just way low. I’m 6’1, 209lbs 33-34 inch waist, fairly heavy muscled, and I eat from 1950-2250 Kcals a day. I’m also an old fart at this point,so I don’t need as many calories per day. Counting calories sucks, but I found unless you ACTUALLY count them, most people have no idea how much they are consuming and it’s just a wild ass guess that is usually way off from reality.
Yes, if you cut Kcals and IM fast you will drop pounds no doubt, and remember, the no feed window has to be strict, no Kcals, ie; no sugar or cream in your coffee or tea,etc.i believe IMF is really important, because I don’t believe that our bodies are supposed to be in a constant state of being fed. Please refer to the concept of” Autophagy”.

The strange thing is since I’ve been doing Keto, I can’t seem to even get close to eating 2000 calories a day even if I wanted to. It just doesn’t take a lot now for me to feel full.

In my carb eating days, I felt like I had to constantly eat, I never really ate big meals, but a lot of small ones with snacking.

It’s liberating not to be such a slave to food.

You’re a female,no? Yes, being a slave to food sucks, I’ve been eating this way for about 13 years. I do still workout 4-5 days per week, both resistance and cardio, but can now limit it to @25 mins per session, but I do go hard for those 25 min. Every couple of weeks ill under eat for two days, and the following week ill over eat for two days, then I’ll go back to more normal amount for two weeks. Do you ever read Mark Sissons site? I found it a great resource when I was starting out(marksdailyapple.com)

I’m learning to count them! I just made a 4 egg lots of butter omelet with a small amount of ham & cheese & onion

And made gravy using 2 cups whole milk and smothered two pieces of whole grain white bread and some hash browns with it. Washed it down with a throwback Mt. Dew. That’s a lot of carbs. Rough math says about 1200 calories, even rougher maybe 1/3 each carbs, protein, fat.

Like I said I want to lose weight. I might have some Monterey jack cheese as a snack tonite.

I just don’t understand why carbs are “bad” if I’m eating less than my basal metabolism, or less than daily needs depending on activity level. Should lose weight regardless? In theory.

I totally “get” that carbs are basically poison when taken to excess, because the body just turns right it into fat. Our bodies never get out of the fed “state”, and we meep snacking and eating more carbs. More fat. The official dietary guidelines don’t make any sense.

First, they keep talking about a 2,000 calorie daily diet. That’s too low? Then they claim carbs should make up 45% to 65% of that.

No I am not a female, LOL!

But once your body starts using those Ketones for fuel you really don’t feel hungry, in fact, I can’t eat after a workout, it takes maybe another hour or two before I can even eat.

I suppose once my fat stores start running low, I will start eating more fruit, at least the lower glycemic fruits.

I obviously don’t know you, or the shape that you are currently in, but if you are heavily Insulin resistant, as I was a good number of years ago, most of what you eat is going to get stored as fat, your body will take what glucose it needs, mostly for the brain, and then store the rest as fat. So most of that meals carbs will be stored as fat, and any fat that was in that meal will also be stored as fat, not good. And as an added bonus, if your chronically under eating, your metabolism will slow to offset the lack of incoming Kcals, not good.
Seriously, I would forget about your BMR, don’t worry about it (don’t demo it either by under eating)
Try to reduce your daily carb intake to 50 or less and do your IMF. If you can just do those two things religiously, you’ll see a big improvement in just a few months.
People who have been eating the standard American diet can’t go from that right to Keto, or even paleo/Primal, you have to ease into it and refine it as you go along. It’s total human nature that when someone decides they had enough, and they’re committed to losing weight(fat) they want to get right to the finish line, I get it been there done it got the t-shirt. But it doesn’t work that way,we didn’t put the weight on over a short period of time, it’s not coming off over night either. You need to succeed, not fail, that’s why when doing a MAJOR life style change, you need to take small steps first, for success, I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is.

Oops, sorry about that, there does seem to be a lot of ladies here that use guy sounding kind of handles though.
I usually eat after my workouts, fasted on the weekends and on week days after work, and I eat lunch usually between 1:30-2:00. I’m usually in Ketosis, or at least have trace elements in my urine. Where I use to have cheat meals, sandwich , or pasta, etc; now instead, I’ll just treat myself to more Kcals of some type of fat bomb treat, or a really big helping of real Hollandaise on my veg, etc.

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