Which Diet Is Best to Lower Liver Fat and Improve Insulin Sensitivity?(nourishedbyscience.com) |
Which Diet Is Best to Lower Liver Fat and Improve Insulin Sensitivity?(nourishedbyscience.com) |
The truth is that this sort of tightly controlled study -- participants were given 100% of their food as packed meals, were constantly monitored, met with a dietician constantly and so on -- is extraordinarily rare, and you'll never find them with large numbers of participants for obvious financial and logistical reasons.
And just to be clear, I have long been a strong skeptic of keto (there is a religiosity of that movement, and the science often doesn't keep up with the claims), so I didn't post this as a cherry picked adherent spreading a gospel, and instead it was truly interesting to me: I happened to get the correlating video this morning while doing a morning elliptical routine and found it fascinating. What amazed me the most about this study is that the caloric restriction meant that even though the "keto" diet was high in fats and saturated fats, LDL and ApoB dropped among members of that group, well into the ideal range. I mean, it dropped across all the groups as a benefit of losing weight, but I think intuitively we would assume that group would see bad results.
Ketogenic diet is definitely a powerful intervention, as this study shows. It's also been particularly powerful for various neurological conditions such as epilepsy, schizophrenia, and even Autism and ADHD. I have mild AuDHD and being in ketosis significantly improves the feelings of inner resistance and aversion that come with neurodivergence - the mind feels well lubricated and concordant instead of chaotic, it perhaps even feels like the neurodivergence is 'cured'.
However, I tried keto several times in the past and it didn't suit me particularly, I could not sustain it. This is because initially, the diet drops blood plasma volume significantly, and I already have hypovolemia (low blood volume) and sickle cell anemia (minor trait Thalassemia). This meant my blood volume would drop too low and it would stress my body exceptionally hard. I was drinking so much salt water (As the guidelines recommend) and was definitely in Ketosis, but the 'keto-flu' persisted past 7-10 days and I gave up. During that period I had my bloods done and had elevated ALT/AST levels, and had constant shortness of breath and low energy.
It was actually this experience with the keto diet that made me realise the connection with hypovolemia and sickle cell anemia. This led me to supplement with creatine to increase plasma volume and that has an amazing effect on how I feel and my cognitive function =). Thanks for reading.