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Any word on Prof Roy Taylor's Retune Study ?

LaoDan said:
Seems like a disastrous diet. Protect lean mass at all costs. Alternating weeks of maintenance/protein sparing modified fasting would be much safer/manageable.

anyone know the macros of the shakes?
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I was recently (16th August) diagnosed with Diabetes (still not confirmed type 1 or type 2) likely Type 2. I studied Roy Taylors book and white papers back to back for 3 days... I was keen to trial this rapid weight loss program as I was morbidly obese (north of 20 stone) but the Diabetic professionals advised not to do it until my blood sugar was stabilised (which it did after about a week). I was on a daily injection of semglee and metformin top and bottom of the day. Sorry for the background but maybe it will help provide context.
I decided day after I read the Roy Taylor program to check the macro nutrients of the shakes they used (exante) and mimic these via the 'my fitness' app into real food... I did this for 1 month but based it on 1100 calories a day instead of 800.... I lost about 24b in 4 weeks. I have now switched over to a TLD as of 3 weeks ago and lost a further 14lb. As a result I am no longer taking my insulin injections anymore (as of yesterday) my BSL are stable at 5.5 (ish) and next aim is to try and lose more weight to see if I can get into remission in the coming 5 weeks.
The program for me has been really good... very hard but the results speak for themselves. However.... I did not use exante... if you happen to be in a NHS trust that is not piloting the scheme then the exante or nestle shakes are a crazy price. I researched this a lot and found that USN diet fuel meal supplement is a fraction of the price and has pretty much the same nutional macros and vitamins. Personally I have 3 USN shakes a day and x1 carbzilla bar to switch it up a bit.... so far so good!
 
I agree. I meant that the general public will need to get their heads around the idea that it is fat in the wrong place rather than large love handles that causes the problem.
 
In fairness to Taylor he does say it's not how you lose the weight, it's that you lose the weight.
Some people prefer a structured regime so the shakes are an easy plan to follow.
 
For those of us who are unenlightened, USN = Ultimate Sports Nutrition, and their products are available in the UK at several wellknown outlets
 
Another way of talking about T2, rather than obesity, and even visceral fat - even though it can and is all part of the conversation - is it's about sick fat cells, and fat cells act like an organ giving and receiving signals. These signals can and do get seriously mucked up. Hence the insulin resistant normal weighted or slim person. Fat cells live on about a ten year life cycle.
 
Whilst I go along with the concept of T2 being mainly a wobbup in the biological messaging system I am not so sure about the 10-year fat cell lifespan statement. Fat cells (adipocytes, not muscle mitochondria) seem to be with us for life. They do get replaced every 8 to 10 years at a rate of about 10% per annum,, but the numbers do not change. Importantly, the keto fat burning process is a balloon deflating exercise and does not remove fat cells.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/fat-cell-numbers-teen-years-linger-lifetime

I was taught this about 50 years ago in school biology, and it seems to still hold today.
 
Yes indeed @Oldvatr (I feel very prone to write "My old forum-friend" there ). Totally agreed that once one is an adult one has the full complement of fat cells - that does not change. The sick fat cell theory is about the health of the fat cell - not the number of them. It is then about what happens within them and between them, and between them, and the organs, gut biota, and digestive system hormones that make up our blood glucose regulation system.

I am rooting for this theory at any rate, as if this is indeed the case, I will get better over time no longer eating excess carbs, and not get worse. But I fear I may not be looking after our all-important gut biota enough - who knows?! (Too many diet cokes and no sugar sprites in my life presently, alas.) And high fat may not be so great for me and how my health presents. I don't know, as yet. Life with diabetes, for me at least, is one big experiment.
 
I realised I should add that as a normal weighted T2, post lowering carb intake a few months after diagnosis, I tried a Very Low Calorie Diet - twice. Using Prof Taylor's pancreatic'/liver fat theory, 800 cals a day for two months. (I used real food - I am sooooo not a processed food industry shakes kind of gal.)

It did not work for me.

But, I think there probably really is a lot to his theory, and definitely the personal fat threshold. I can get to just non diabetic HBA1c levels at the end of two months of what I called a semi-starvation diet, but I had to get to skinny - not 'just' slim. (Carrying a cushion around to sit on skinny.) This fits his theory, as he says your personal fat threshold is probably what you were as a senior in high school/teens, and I was a very lean muscular type in my teens in the 70s, pre Ancell Keys and his high carb low fat diet was government mandated, and oh boy oh boy obviously did not work for me.

Anyway.

I cannot live any kind of normal (working, socialising, moving!) being that skinny now, or keeping my food intake as low as I probably would have to maintain that skinny. Even with Mosley's excellent and careful 'easier to maintain' plan post VLCD. LCHF and Keto does not 'allow' me to be non-diabetic skinny. So normal weighted, but with T2, I am.

So, for a T2 like me, Prof Taylor's theories, along with the sick fat cell theory, makes a lot of sense.

And throw in the excellent Dr Fung's IR theory, and the malfunctioning mitochondria - voila! You have it, imho.

Whether or not you personally can get non-diabetic blood glucose levels with these wonderfully logical scientific theories about T2 - that is another thing.
 
As you say in this piece, we are dealing with two types of fat in cells, and different pathways to get it in and out, We have carb-based glycogen in the mitochondria and muscles, and lipid fat in the adipose tissues. The liver deals with both of these, and also the conversion of one or other to the other Prof Taylor IMHO shows a relationship between weight and one form of fat but this seems not to answer the total question,

So what is a sick fat cell? Which type of cell? and what is making it sick? For Prof Taylor it seems to be primarily the cells in the pancreas. These cells accumulate fat because they do not normally process fat in any form in terms of storage. So how or why do they get this unwanted fat? He has no answer for that, in fact, he does not even seem to ask the question at all. Merely do what I say and it will go. He does not have a viable solution to stop it from building up again and merely hands it back to the patient to find their own ways to maintain weight loss.

TBF on Prof Taylor, his original remit was to find a diet plan that emulates the bariatric surgery process as a cost-saving measure for the NHS. He has been successful in doing this IMO. T2 Diabetes remission is serendipity.

As a TOFI myself I recognise the cushion comment. I find having a bath to be difficult since losing most of my Glutinous Maximus on LCHF.

And yes, I am old and getting older by the day. Long may that continue!!!!! But age is not determined by the number of birthdays, is it? (think of those born on Feb 29th)

Edit to add: It seems the pancreas uses lipid fat itself, and stenosis of the pancreas is a condition where fat becomes abnormally stored in the cells. This is the fat that Prof Taylor seems to be targetting.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212877819301760
 
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Warning a cookie on that linked site establishes your precise geelocation to a few metres. IMHO that is too intrusive for my liking. It also scans your device and records your device internet portal details.
I called up the vice,com website, and it immediately asked me to sign into Facebook, which would require my password.

Edit to add: I found that it is possible to reject all cookies from that site on one of the following pages, and once that had been ticked, I had no further issues from my AV software.
 
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NicoleC1971 said:
I agree. I meant that the general public will need to get their heads around the idea that it is fat in the wrong place rather than large love handles that causes the problem.
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Yes, this is true in my own case. I gained fat in the midriff area while still retaining slimness almost everywhere else. I targeted the 'enemy' and it had gone within 7 weeks, leaving me with a HbA1c of just 37 (down from 67/68) which proved to me that this visceral fat was the invader
 
Considering we are still growing and developing until we are 25 years old, or so (later if we had later than average puberty) the waist size after that is surely the logical measurement for this theory of prof. Taylor
 
The article starts with an observation that the diabetic patients in the waiting room are undernourished, thin, and anemic. But then it digresses into a discussion on B12 and whether it might also cause diabetes. But thinking about it, the upper echelons of Indian society might be able to regularly access dairy and meat and fresh fish produce for their diet, the poor lower caste members are not so blessed. Also, there are strong religious mandates for a vegetarian or vegan way of living apart from the economic ones. So the anemia could be due to missing B12, but not diabetes IMO.

The continent of India has one of the highest rates for diabetes according to the WHO surveys, The article does not discuss this possible link but it is a strong confounder.
 
I read somewhere that the idea of India being mostly vegetarian is a misunderstanding. That the % of vegetarians/vegans is probably only 35%.
This Indian woman said that things like Ghee (clarified butter) Indian cheese and eggs are all considered to be 'vegan' there!
So for the most part the only true veggies/vegans there are either those with strong religious convictions (Jains?) and the poor who can't afford animal products.
 
The current population is estimated to be 37% vegetarian according to the latest survey. That is overall, so the lower castes may present a higher ratio. The article was describing mainly poorer and less well-off patients in the facility. Either way, it is a large enough confounder to explain much of what was observed and does not underscore any claim that B12 deficiency is caused by diabetes or the corollary.

The article is using an observational study as cause/effect.

Edit to add: ghee is butter with the protein content removed, and does not contain B12,
 
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