Posted on 09/03/2024 7:24:17 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Keto, carnivore, low-carb. These are all just “fad diets,” right? Not so fast. Scientists at UC San Francisco recently published a study in Nature that showed a high-fat ketogenic diet combined with fasting restricted the growth of pancreatic tumors in mice.
The study took a look at how certain tumors use ketone bodies as an energy source and that fasting and a ketogenic diet change the way messenger RNA “feeds” those tumors. Let’s take a step back for a moment and talk at a basic level about how this all works. Disclaimer: I am a mere journalist and not a doctor or scientist. However, I adhere to the carnivore lifestyle, so I can explain this at a basic level.
On a Standard American Diet (SAD), we consume highly processed grains, chemicals, seed oils, processed sugars, fats, and more. The body (at an inherent level) uses those substances for fuel. Then, it stores the rest as fat. In a ketogenic/low-carb/carnivore diet, you don’t eat many carbohydrates and sugars, and you consume more foods high in fat, which causes your body to first burn fat, and then burn ketones for fuel.
There’s a lot more to it than this. For example, I consume close to zero carbohydrates each day. I also do at least a 16-hour intermittent fast. That means my food consumption consists of fatty red meat and animal products, like milk, eggs, butter, cheese, and bacon. When I eat my meal, I consume some blueberries afterward as well, because I have found that my body works well with blueberries and a small amount of that natural sugar added at mealtime.
In contrast, my husband is a very strict carnivore. He consumes close to zero carbohydrates per day, the only real carbs coming from fresh cream in his afternoon coffee. He eats a nice big rib-eye steak at mealtime, and if we are hungry for a snack in the late afternoon, we will eat a pound or two of bacon.
Sounds like a prescription for a world of health issues, right?
Take this for what it’s worth.
When my husband decided to begin carnivore in January of 2023, he weighed 387 lbs. He suffered from clinical depression, for which he was prescribed SSRI medication. He also suffered from insomnia and low testosterone. Worst of all, he had multiple sclerosis. His MS had presented as optic neuritis, and his vision had been severely impacted; a lifetime of 20/20 vision was reduced to 20/40 with massive field defects seemingly overnight. But that wasn’t all. Upon further scans, the neurologists found lesions on both his cervical and thoracic spine. In this case, a lesion is scarring on the spinal cord where the body has attacked the myelin surrounding the nerves, leading to a defect. Luckily for him, he didn’t notice disability from any lesion other than the ones affecting his optic nerves, but we knew they were there.
🎉🚨ONE YEAR TRANSFORMATION!
I’ve been so patiently waiting for this day. One year ago, my husband suffered from chronic depression and was on medication. He suffered from MS. He didn’t have motivation or healthy sleeping habits. He took his health into his own hands with the… https://t.co/tmqA392RBS pic.twitter.com/no0FDJo98J
— Tracy Beanz (@tracybeanz) January 6, 2024
So, there is the picture; an obese 43-year-old male with insomnia and lifelong clinical depression “requiring” SSRI medication, low testosterone, and multiple sclerosis. Fast forward approximately a year and a half of a strict, low-carb, carnivore-based diet, and he now weighs 185 lbs. His testosterone is where it should be. He is off the SSRIs and is no longer clinically depressed. His last MRI scans showed that the lesions on his thoracic spine are now undetectable, and his vision is back to 20/20, with significant field acuity improvement.
🥳🚨ONE YEAR 6 MONTHS –
All of this is still true, but my husband today met his goal for taking control of his health and mental wellness. He’s lost a total of 201 lbs. I’ll have new pictures. I couldn’t be more damn proud. 🙏❤️ IT IS POSSIBLE to become independent and healthy. https://t.co/yuEuQSJebF
— Tracy Beanz (@tracybeanz) June 29, 2024
The weight loss was a BONUS. It wasn’t the best part of this remarkable recovery. Of course, you could say this is all anecdotal, and I mentioned that I, too, am adhering to a very low-carb carnivore lifestyle. So, what happened for me?
I have lost 30 pounds. I was suffering from hair loss, and my hair has grown back. I now have baby hairs poking out all over my head. I was also able to come off the medication I was taking for a condition I was diagnosed with called IIH, or Idiopathic Intracranial Hypotension. It has no known cause and occurs when your body produces too much cerebrospinal fluid. This leads your brain to act as though it is dealing with a brain tumor or increased cranial pressure. That causes a host of issues like constant vertigo, nystagmus, tinnitus, and swelling of the optic nerve, which can lead to blindness. The craziest thing about it is that doctors placed me on a severely sodium-restricted diet and prescribed me a diuretic called Lasix. After about eight months of carnivore and attempting to limit my sodium intake, I said, “What the hay, let me just try and come off the diuretic and see what happens if I eat like a normal carnivore would eat.” Sure enough, my “high” sodium and nutrition-packed carnivore lifestyle led to a complete remission of this mystery affliction.
Outside of those improvements, there was much, much more. My fasting blood sugar was consistently above 100, with no good cause. Now it rests at around 80. My body was constantly inflamed, and I was just puffy. For an example of this, you can check out the documentary “Flynn.” I appeared in this documentary before starting my carnivore journey, and the juxtaposition of “old” me vs. “new” me is stunning. I needed frequent naps throughout the day and was just not metabolically healthy. But, my biggest stunner was a complete halving of triglycerides and a beautiful rise in my HDL cholesterol. The best part about the cholesterol panel? I had a routine visit with my doctor (who is on board with my eating habits) and they substituted another doctor at the last minute. When I told her how I was eating, she gasped and told me that I must add carbs and sugar back to my diet. When I asked her why I must consume sugar, she went on a tirade about how poor the Atkins diet turned out to be and sent me on the way to the lab for some blood work. She snuck a lipid panel in, I assume because she wanted a “gotcha” for me when my cholesterol and triglycerides were terrible. Well, part of me wonders what she thought when she received those results.
A lot of folks reaching out and asking, so here it all is.
PRE CARNIVORE:
Cholesterol: 190
Triglyceride: 186
Ultra HDL: 44
VLDL: 37
LDL: 109
LDL/HDL Risk Ratio: 2
Chol/HDL Risk Ratio: 41 YEAR CARNIVORE:
Cholesterol: 239
Triglyceride: 92
Ultra HDL: 57
VLDL: 18
LDL: 164…— Tracy Beanz (@tracybeanz) January 24, 2024
I am healthier than I have been in my entire life, and so is my husband.
So again, two anecdotal examples? Sure. But you can take a look at social media and quickly find thousands of people settling on this lifestyle (or some version of it that is right for them) and seeing miraculous results in their mental health and physical health. Gut microbiome…restored, immune system…restored, health…restored.
For years, doctors have told us that a ketogenic diet is not healthy—that it will cause low blood pressure, cardiovascular issues, nutrient deficiency, kidney stones, constipation, and more. They’ve also said that a diet consisting solely of red meat and animal products is a direct gateway to high cholesterol and heart disease—two things that have been perversely corrupted as the “science” has been applied in studies. The keto/carnivore lifestyle is drawing the ire of every single “mainstream” health official. They are using the same “study” methods to disprove keto/carnivore that they did to “disprove” the efficacy of Ivermectin. It’s demonized. We published a column recently showing how Oreo cookies are better than statins at lowering cholesterol—perhaps the medical establishment may want to revisit this one a bit…
And some doctors are. The Ketogenic diet is being studied as a valuable and effective treatment for epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic inflammation, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, insulin resistance, and much, much more. Speaking from firsthand experience, at my husband’s last neurology appointment (the last one he needs now for several more years, praise God) she had a resident with her. When she asked my husband how he had managed to improve all of this in a short time, he sheepishly responded, “Keto.” As you all well know, “alternative” and dietary “natural” wellness isn’t always widely accepted in the medical field. As soon as he uttered the words, the resident screamed, “SEE! I told you!! There are so many studies showing this is the way to go for autoimmune patients!”
So, perhaps, some of them are starting to “get it.” All of this is to say that when I read the study showing that a ketogenic diet and fasting shrunk pancreatic tumors in mice, I wasn’t surprised, but I was very excited. For far too long, Americans have been ingesting literal poison in their diets, and I have been educating on these very things every chance I get. Seed oil, processed food, glyphosate, sugar, and more are turning us into a nation of sick, tired, metabolically unhealthy people. And, whether you think my experience with my husband is just an “anecdotal” occurrence or not, I think that sometimes, getting back to the basics is what we should do. Incorporating this into my family has changed my entire life. My husband and I are vibrant, healthy, active, and sharp individuals who will absolutely not be beholden to Big Pharma ever again. At the end of the day, that is what scares them, and that is what we are trying to change. Once a nation is healthy, abundant, soulful, and joyful, they are impossible to control. And the more people can figure that out, the freer and more prosperous we will be.
BTTT!!
There used to be a keto ping list, but, I’ve forgotten who does that.
Pinging a few.
I have read elsewhere that SUGAR is the essential fuel of tumors.
Makes sense that keto starves them.
Ironic, considering the author states in the 2nd to last paragraph EXACTLY the point I was trying to make in a recent thread.
Long day; don’t care.
No kidding
You cut a ton of sugar/carbs
Cancer thrives on sugar because sugar turns the body acidic, cancer thrives in an acidic environment
*
One thing FOR SURE, the Keto/Carnivore diet works just fine for Tracy (the author).
It’s not “the diet” it’s individual foods and what they do or don’t do to many bodies after the person ingests the food or substance.
Isn’t it funny that we call proper nutrition a “diet.”
The human body is variable across races, to be sure, but one only needs to look at certain aspects of human biology to see that we were designed to eat meat.
Our teeth are omnivoric with a preference toward tearing and cutting. We have a single chamber stomach which lends towards consumption of meat and dairy. Our brains thrive on cholesterol and ketogenic substances (meats and dairy).
While we can tolerate seeds and grains, our digestive system doesn’t have the proper chemical composition to break them down into anything useful. They’re just bulk fiber that passes through relatively unchanged (just look in the toilet after eating a grain-heavy meal).
As macronutrients go, we are best suited for proteins and fats to maintain muscle mass and brain capacity. Carbohydrates provide a brief boost to energy, but unused, they convert into substances that aren’t necessary for long term health.
Carnivore, Keto, South Beach, Paleo... whatever you want to call it, cutting out carbohydrates, and specifically sugars, is the key to long term health. This is playing out in public view and is being adopted by individuals around the world and changing their lives for the better.
You can cast aspersions at this one individual’s social media posts, but the reality is that the thousands if not millions of people are benefiting from this monumental shift in thinking about our health.
You’ve presented the truth.
I’d like to add that “diet” simply means “what we eat”.
Everyone is “on a diet”.
An example of who was not on a diet;
Terri Schiavo, who was euthanized by starvation and dehydration by her abusive husband and the Florida courts, was an awful example of someone who wasn’t “on a diet”.
p.s. In case anyone forgot, those sick bastards were so evil that they actually had fresh flowers in fresh water in her room for her to look at as she died of dehydration.
All that aside, your points are correct.
Doctors have specifically been trained not to think critically anymore. Gone are the days when the individual doctor puzzled over his patient using his own judgement.
I have actually had doctors walk into the room and Google my symptoms. And even if they aren’t that obvious it is clear they are merely conduits for the currently popular groupthink.
So much of what passed for science making up that groupthink is just garbage. Their are studies “proving” intermittent fasting causes heart problems that did nothing more than ask random people how often they had missed meals for the last few years. No actual observations, just relying on people’s recollection of what they had been eating. But because it was presented as a scientific study and published now it becomes part of the established groupthink.
“...for the currently popular groupthink.”
It’s not even ‘groupthink’, it’s SpecialInterestThink. They capture our government by a perfectly legal bribery scheme, which is: “Spend 20 years (or maybe less) regulating us ‘nicely’ and you’ll find a very rewarding career with us in the private sector.”
It’s so bad now that even other countries, countries that ALWAYS deferred to us in areas like health, are now making their own assessments and with that, have ELIMINATED something like half of the additives permitted in US food.
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