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Is a very low carb diet healthy?

JohnEGreen said:
.

These are all included in my grandsons diet he is virtually zero carbs except for the occasional carb day.

Though he is not diabetic

He does squats with 180 kilograms in the gym

So I would say he is pretty healthy.
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Without decent carb intake, the muscles should look "flat" because they need glycogen to look "pumped". How heavy is he?
 
jaywak said:
If this is correct as a type 1 if I had zero carbs in my diet there would be be no need for me to inject insulin hence in theory I could in fact cure my insulin dependant diabetes ! Interesting .
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It is impossible to get to zero carbs. Our bodies convert not just carbs to glucose, but also protein (as said above) and fat can be converted to glucose by the same process. So stopping eating altogether would be a brief cure, but not recommended. Fasting also works to a degree.

Low Carb diets were used in the days before insulin was discovered and it was called Banting. Do you Bant? They used it to treat diabetics, but it was still only delaying the inevitable for T1D. It was, by the way, the treatment for epilepsy. So no, sadly there is no magic cure by diet alone for insulin users. What an LC diet can do is reduce the insulin requirement and may offer improved control of bgl levels with smaller peaks and troughs. Some T2D have been successful in coming off insulin altogether, but these are T2D who were misdiagnosed as being insulin deficient, but were actually suffering Insulin Resistance.
 
millenium said:
Without decent carb intake, the muscles should look "flat" because they need glycogen to look "pumped". How heavy is he?
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Surely that should read 'plumped'? since all that happens is that carbs are being stored as sugar and water - nothing to do with the muscle mass. Glycogen is fat. It is stored in the muscle tissue to provide fast-acting energy source for fight or flight response following an adrenaline rush. So athletes doing sprints need to be pumped, but weight lifters do not except out of vanity. Charles Atlas has a lot to answer for IMHO. I am happy being a 10 stone weakling, not a 20 stone sugar cube.
 
Dark Horse said:
There has been a recent review of benefits versus risks of following a ketogenic diet with regard to chronic diseases, including diabetes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8322232/#B35

One of the studies cited in the review:- Hyperketonemia and ketosis increase the risk of complications in type 1 diabetes
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4867238/
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This paper is full of contraindications and statements made as of fact but not referenced to any source "It is known" is a common comment they make.

In one section they conclude that ketosis neither elucidates or causes oxidative stress in diabetics, but in another section they clearly state that oxidative stress caused by ketosis is a major cause of morbidity. There is also a statement that "our studies show" but unreferenced and not covered in this paper.

One thing they say, which may be true, is that for T1D there is a danger that ketone levels in the blood can rise when insulin treatment intervals are such that insulin levels drop to zero thus kicking off ketosis. Obvious really, but they say this can lead to ketoacidosis DKA which again is obvious if you think about it. They state that ketosis levels of ketone in the blood can reach 7 mmol.l during fasting, which seems a bit high. The danger for T2D insulin users is less apparently, and is rare.

One thing they do cover is reduction of SCOT can be dangerous in removing regulation of ketone generation in the liver and stopping excretion of ketones from the blood. This is apparently caused by a direct association with tyrosine nitration, which has been proven in animal studies (rats) but not in humans. Apparently, tyrosine is made inside our bodies from phenylalanine
which is the problem chemical in aspartame sweetener. It is a non essential amino acid used in the brain.

They have yet another section on oxidative stress causing CVD and brain damage, where they liken ketosis as being similar to DKA, and they read across from DKA showing what damage that can cause and implying that nutritional ketosis ia merely a fore runner for this damage.

Then they have a section showing that ketosis increases IR by making insulin dependant cells insensitive to glucose after prolonged ketosis. This is following in vitro experiments, but not observed in vivo apparently. All done with cell cultures.
Their conclusion here was
"It can be speculated that elevated ketone levels coupled with elevated free fatty acids and glucose might impair insulin secretion in T2D patients."

Edi to add: this last statement above is an oxymoron. Having high ketones concurrent with high lipids and high glucose levels will not occur when in nutritional ketosis, so is clearly talking about full blooded DKA not diet.
 
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Oldvatr said:
Surely that should read 'plumped'? since all that happens is that carbs are being stored as sugar and water - nothing to do with the muscle mass. Glycogen is fat. It is stored in the muscle tissue to provide fast-acting energy source for fight or flight response following an adrenaline rush. So athletes doing sprints need to be pumped, but weight lifters do not except out of vanity. Charles Atlas has a lot to answer for IMHO. I am happy being a 10 stone weakling, not a 20 stone sugar cube.
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Slight misconception here. Glycogen is a storage polysaccharide not a fat. It is indeed a readily available energy source after cellular ATP and glucose. Excess glucose is stored as glycogen primarily in striated muscle and the liver.
 
There are 2 papers listed in the original quote, I presume you are talking about the second.
Oldvatr said:
"It is known"
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I searched the article for the phrase but got zero results so can't comment.

Oldvatr said:
In one section they conclude that ketosis neither elucidates or causes oxidative stress in diabetics,
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Might you have misread this? They do say " AA and BHB neither elicit nor prevent oxidative stress in vitro". (Emphasis is mine.)

Oldvatr said:
"our studies show"
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I searched the article for this phrase but got zero results so can't comment.
 
JohnEGreen said:
About between sixteen to seventeen stone.
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Around 110kg. I will say hard to excel in weight lifting on a low carb diet. With low carb, he will need to up the protein even more to 3-4g per kg body weight. And protein is not an effective fuel.
 
Oldvatr said:
Surely that should read 'plumped'? since all that happens is that carbs are being stored as sugar and water - nothing to do with the muscle mass. Glycogen is fat. It is stored in the muscle tissue to provide fast-acting energy source for fight or flight response following an adrenaline rush. So athletes doing sprints need to be pumped, but weight lifters do not except out of vanity. Charles Atlas has a lot to answer for IMHO. I am happy being a 10 stone weakling, not a 20 stone sugar cube.
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I am not that sure about weight lifter. But they should need lots of carb to replenish their high energy expenditure from lifting heavy weight repeatedly. For athletes with normal metabolism, without high carb intake is a disadvantage. For those with diabetes, low carb is an advantage.
 
Dr Snoddy said:
Slight misconception here. Glycogen is a storage polysaccharide not a fat. It is indeed a readily available energy source after cellular ATP and glucose. Excess glucose is stored as glycogen primarily in striated muscle and the liver.
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Sorry. You are correct. I was using the term colloquially.
 
millenium said:
I am not that sure about weight lifter. But they should need lots of carb to replenish their high energy expenditure from lifting heavy weight repeatedly. For athletes with normal metabolism, without high carb intake is a disadvantage. For those with diabetes, low carb is an advantage.
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If you where to see the amount of protein he puts back in a day you would be astounded I know I am.
He is more a bodybuilder than a power lifter but he sure can lift weights alright.

one of the people who views
 
millenium said:
Without decent carb intake, the muscles should look "flat" because they need glycogen to look "pumped". How heavy is he?
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For a carb burner this is correct. To get a similar result on Keto some salt before will provide the pump; maybe a get enough salt in food as I get small pump and vascularity on less than 100 grams of carbs a day (closer to 50 than 100, and I am not doing ). Ketosavage, Danny Vega, Tristyn Lee and the massive Jon Andersen are a few examples who have minimal carbs and are ripped and not flat.
 
millenium said:
I am not that sure about weight lifter. But they should need lots of carb to replenish their high energy expenditure from lifting heavy weight repeatedly. For athletes with normal metabolism, without high carb intake is a disadvantage. For those with diabetes, low carb is an advantage.
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My deadlift pb on my 53rd birthday was 220 kg at a body weight of 92kg - completely fasted, whilst rushing to get to my birthday meal, last night 200 kg went up easy (after dinner).

The fat adaptation changes everything.
 
I don’t know the medical science behind this but my logic is that calories are energy. Energy is what your body needs whether it gets the energy from carbohydrates, fats and proteins; it’s still energy. Now, I don’t know if there is any other biological reason for our bodies to have or need carbohydrates but if the only reason is energy than low carb high fat diets seem okay to me.
 
KidDougi said:
I don’t know the medical science behind this but my logic is that calories are energy. Energy is what your body needs whether it gets the energy from carbohydrates, fats and proteins; it’s still energy. Now, I don’t know if there is any other biological reason for our bodies to have or need carbohydrates but if the only reason is energy than low carb high fat diets seem okay to me.
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I mean the biology teach in me winces a bit but yeah, different processes but same outcome (energy)!
 
JohnEGreen said:
If you where to see the amount of protein he puts back in a day you would be astounded I know I am.
He is more a bodybuilder than a power lifter but he sure can lift weights alright.

one of the people who views
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Low carb bodybuilders are very rare. The last time I saw WBF endorsing a low carb diet on all its 13 athletes, only one turn out alright and rumour was he was not on low carb. Olympic athletes on low carb is also very rare.
 
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