We have covered most of the hardcore science that I wanted
to review when looking at ketosis and ketogenesis. We have covered most of the relevant biochemistry in
terms of how are ketone bodies formed and how they are regulated. That is all well and good, but I am
sure many of you are just wondering how ketosis can benefit you, right? Well, this article is meant to show you
some of the benefits for ketosis.
Ketogenic diets have been used as therapeutic diets for some
conditions for over a century, and while it isn’t used as much anymore, it
probably should be. This article
will mainly go over how it can help out those in a disease state; however, I
think the mechanisms through which ketones act in the diseases show us some of
the power of these energy molecules.
You many not have one of these diseases, but seeing how much they can
help with certain conditions certainly makes you think twice about them.
Epilepsy
Severe epileptic seizures affect millions of people around
the world every year, and despite the increasing number of anticonvulsant drugs
on the market some patients still get seizures. With modern pharmacology failing these people, what
treatments are left for them?
Well, the ketogenic diet has been shown to reduce epileptic seizures by
over 75% in many clinical studies since 1920 (1)!
One of the mechanisms that a ketogenic diet helps with
epilepsy is through its actions on GABA.
GABA is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in our brain, and since
epileptic seizures are characterized by large sudden increases in neuron
firing, increasing GABA would be a great place to start looking for
treatments. It appears that ketone
bodies may help facilitate the conversion of glutamate to GABA in our neurons (2). While increasing GABA will help control
seizures, decreasing glutamate will help just as much, because glutamate is the
major excitatory neurotransmitter in our brains.
Another mechanism that ketone bodies might use is inhibiting
VGLUT, which is a main glutamate transporter. One study has shown that ketone bodies are a direct
competitive inhibitor of VGLUT, however, they used large doses of ketone bodies
in the study, so further research would be needed in a more physiologic setting
(3).
Other
Neurological disorders
As we can see with epilepsy, and from the Brain Fuels article,
ketone bodies have a potent effect on our brain and its biochemistry. Ketone bodies have been found to help
in a variety of other neurological disorders, and we don’t have to look to far
to find papers telling us this benefit (4, 5, 6, 7).
Alzheimer’s is a disorder characterized by amyloid plaques
and impaired glucose metabolism in the brain (8). We know that ketones can help provide
an energy substrate for our brains if glucose is not available, so that can be
one way ketosis helps those with Alzheimer’s. Also, one study found that a diet high in ketone producing
MCTs caused a decrease in amyloid precursor protein and increased metabolic
efficiency in dogs (9).
Another long term study of mice showed an overall decrease in amyloid-beta from
a high-fat diet (10).
As we saw in the brain fuels article, ketone bodies are an
excellent source of energy for our brain, and are one of its most efficient
fuels. If I, or a loved one, had
any sort of neurological disorder I would definitely try a ketogenic diet. The data that they are helpful for the
brain in particular is too overwhelming to not try it, even if it is a
condition that hasn’t been studied with ketogenic diets much.
Hypertriglyceridemia
As we saw before, being in ketosis has the ability to lower
triglycerides. While we have
already covered the biochemistry of this fact in earlier posts, I’d just like
to share a couple of trials in which this effect happened in humans.
In one study, patients with severe hypertriglyceridemia were
given a formula diet containing MCTs (11). And when I say
severe, I mean SEVERE. At the
start of the trial these people had triglyceride levels averaging 1601 mg/dL!
Now, while this isn’t a strict ketogenic diet, I think much of the benefits we
will see from this diet are from ketogenesis, since the ability to easily form
ketone bodies is the main difference between MCTs and other fats. When given this formula the patients
saw reductions in triglycerides from 1601 mg/dL all the way down to 554 mg/dL!
While still extremely high, we can see the huge reduction in
triglycerides. Not only that, but
this trial was only a week! In a
week they brought their triglycerides down over 1000mg/dL! They also found significantly lower
total cholesterol and fasting glucose levels.
In another trial, patients were again told to ingest 25-30g
of either MCT or LCT oil (12). While we can’t call these true
ketogenic diets, I think that is the effect we are seeing. They were told to maintain a normal activity
level, and diet other than the added oil.
After 8 weeks the people in the MCT group had significant lowering of
body weight, hip circumference, waist circumference, body fat, and
triglycerides! Wow, after 8 weeks
of consuming only a modest amount of MCTs they were able to achieve great
results in almost every marker for metabolic syndrome.
I think we can see a major benefit of ketosis from this
section. We can use ketosis as a
way to try and normalize our metabolism, and kind of kick start it to start
working again. If we are
metabolically deranged and can’t lose weight we need to fix our metabolism
before we start to lose the weight.
Also, what is probably the best way to lose weight? Starvation. Through ketogenic diets we can stimulate that starvation
response while still consuming food.
Not only that, but it normalizes our metabolism back to the way it
should be running, because it needs to be as efficient as possible. The next article will focus on
practical ketosis recommendations, so I don’t want to go much further into it
here, but I think this is powerful stuff.
Cancer
Cancerous tissue is unique, in that it supplies almost all
of its energy from glucose. It
cannot use other forms of energy to supply its growth. This was first observed by Ottto
Warburg, and is thus termed the Warburg Effect (13). If cancer tissue can only utilize
glucose, then in theory a ketogenic diet should be an ideal treatment, since it
provides little glucose, but will supply ketones that can be used by most of
the other tissues of your body. Well, this is good in theory, however the data
are much less ideal.
I found some studies that supported that a low-carb,
ketogenic diet could help with slowing cancer growth (14, 15, 16). However, several other studies should
little to no benefit of the ketogenic diet (17, 18). I think a ketogenic diet is something
to try in patients with cancer, as it the results show it works best as an
addition to traditional treatment.
Also, I don’t really see any way that entering ketosis can “hurt”
someone.
Summary
And there it is!
These are the conditions where I would definitely say a ketogenic diet
has some proven science behind it being able to help. If I had any sort of neurological disorder,
hypertriglyceridemia, or cancer, I would definitely adopt a fairly strict
ketogenic diet. I think ketogenic
diets also have a place in weight loss protocol for the obese, and can help to
lower cholesterol levels.
Like I was saying above I think one of the main benfits of
ketosis is it helps to normalize our metabolism in a way. It gets us back to letting our body run
the show on which energy to use and when.
So I think ketosis has spot as an adjunct treatment for anything that
has to do with metabolism, which is a huge array of diseases and
disorders. If anyone out there has
had success on a ketogenic with a disease I didn’t mention, please leave your
experiences in the comments! Next
time we will go over my practical recommendations for a ketogenic diet, and how
to implement it into a normal lifestyle.
No comments:
Post a Comment