The 411 on Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is not made by plants or animals, but by microbes blanketing the earth. We presumably used to get B12 when we drank out of a mountain stream or sipped water from a well, based on studies showing vegetarians in developing countries who drink purified water appear to be at higher risk. Now, we…

Keto Diets and Diabetes 

Ketogenic diets are put to the test for diabetes reversal.    As you can see at the start of my video Does a Ketogenic Diet Help Diabetes or Make It Worse?, ketogenic diets can lower blood sugars better than conventional diets. So much so, in fact, that there is a keto product company that claims…

Muscle Shrinkage and Bone Loss on Keto Diets? 

Ketogenic diets have been found to undermine exercise efforts and lead to muscle shrinkage and bone loss.    An official International Society of Sports Nutrition position paper covering keto diets notes the “ergolytic effect” of keto diets on both high- and low-intensity workouts. Ergolytic is the opposite of ergogenic. Ergogenic means performance-boosting, whereas ergolytic means…

The Safety of Keto Diets 

What are the effects of ketogenic diets on nutrient sufficiency, gut flora, and heart disease risk?  Given the decades of experience using ketogenic diets to treat certain cases of pediatric epilepsy, a body of safety data has accumulated. Nutrient deficiencies would seem to be the obvious issue. Inadequate intake of 17 micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals…

Can You Sustain Weight Loss on Ketosis? 

Might the appetite-suppressing effects of ketosis improve dietary compliance?  The new data are said to debunk “some, if not all, of the popular claims made for extreme carbohydrate restriction,” but what about ketones suppressing hunger? In a tightly controlled metabolic ward study where the ketogenic diet made things worse, everyone ate the same number of…

Can You Lose Weight on a Keto Diet? 

Let’s dive into ketogenic diets and their $33-billion gimmick. The carbohydrate–insulin model of obesity, the underlying theory that ketogenic diets have some sort of metabolic advantage, has been experimentally falsified. Keto diet proponents’ own studies showed the exact opposite: Ketogenic diets actually put you at a metabolic disadvantage and slow the loss of body fat.…

Testing the Keto Diet Theory 

Do low-carb and ketogenic diets have a metabolic advantage for weight loss?  When you don’t eat enough carbohydrates, you force your body to burn more fat. “However, this rise in fat oxidation [burning] is often misconstrued as a greater rate of net FM [fat-mass] reduction” in the body, ignoring the fact that, on a ketogenic…

Keto Diet to Effectively Fight Cancer? 

What does the science say about the clinical use of ketogenic diets for epilepsy and cancer?  Blood sugar, also known as blood glucose, is the universal go-to fuel for the cells throughout our bodies. Our brain burns through a quarter pound of sugar a day because “glucose is the preferred metabolic fuel.” We can break…