Some of the top killer diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, diabetes and cancer share some common characteristics. They are all based on the insulin and leptin resistance or a metabolic dysfunction that results from greater consumption of net carbohydrates, proteins and sugar.
The insulin and leptin resistance are not the only problem to worry about. Further on, it triggers many biochemical changes in the body, such as accumulation of fats, inflammation, cellular damage and many others.
For treating these diseases, there is no need of different strategies, because the same would address to each separate condition. First of all, you should improve the metabolic and mitochondrial function for better health. But in what way to do that? A proper diet and meals’ timing play a crucial role.
Nutritional Ketosis – The Key for Overall Health?
By a high-fat, low-carbohydrate and low-moderate protein diet, you will practice the so called nutritional ketosis. This is a state where your body burns fat as its fuel rather than glucose. For this reason, nutritional ketosis is the keyword for many health conditions that result from obesity.
Many athletes practice this nutritional ketosis in contrast to the traditional high-carb diets because it improve their physical endurance and stamina.
Along treating the previously mentioned conditions, nutritional ketosis is applied for seizures, especially in kids, unresponsive to drugs and Parkinson’s disease. Also, ketogenic diet could even help with cancer.
Once you start this diet, you feel less hungry and won’t crave for food because you shift the burning of sugar to burning of fats.
Jeff Volek, a professor and registered dietitian at the Ohio State University has authored several books and has contributed a lot in the field of high-fat, low carbohydrate diet. The main goal of the genes is the degradation of branched-chain amino acids because in that way it preserves the muscle mass.
Ketones protect the branched-chain amino acids and leave high levels of them in circulation.
Ketones – A Healthy, Clean-Burning Fuel
Most of the people are obese due to the usage of non-fiber carbs as a primary fuel, which inhibit the ability of the body to burn body fat.
High-quality fats are more preferable fuel, which is used far more efficiently than carbs. When the body burns fats for fuel, the amount of oxygen it needs, goes down and enables the metabolism to run more efficiently.
How to Enter into Nutritional Ketosis
In order to train your body to use fat for fuel is to remove the sugars and starches from your diet. An intake of 50 grams of net carbs and low-moderate diet is low enough to make the shift to nutritional ketosis.
However, each person responds to food in a different way. Many people can enter into full ketosis with an intake of 70-80 grams of non-fiber carbs. Other, insulin resistant may require less than 40 grams even 30 grams per day.
In order to find your personal carb target, you should measure not only the blood glucose level, but also the ketones through breath, blood or urine.
The results are an objective measure of ketosis, not just counting the consumption of carbohydrates. In nutritional ketosis, the ketones should range between 0.5 to 3.0 millimoles per liter.
Also, a nutrient tracker will help you understand what kind and how much food you need to keep the ketogenic diet targets.
One suggestion is Cronometer.com/mercola which will support the nutritional ketosis.
Avoid Milk and Consider MCT Oil
Along grains and sugar, try to avoid milk because it can disrupt the ketosis if you consume a lot of it. It’s because of galactose in milk, a carbohydrate and casein, a protein that can trigger inflammation.
When the level of net carbs is low, the body starts burning fat as the primary fuel and the livers starts converting some fats into ketones. The ketones are made in an endogenous production, by your body and from your fat stores.
Also, you can improve the level of ketones by taking some supplements, but these exogenous ketones are not that beneficial if they are not low carb. Coconut oil can slightly increase the ketone levels in your body.
Ketogenic Diet for Epileptic Seizures
According to Authority Nutrition, over 15 conditions respond favorably to ketogenic diet. One condition with longest and best documented track record is the epilepsy. Since 1920, the ketogenic diet is used for treating drug resistant epileptic seizures and it proved helpful for both adults and children. For this reason, this type of diet should be incorporated as a first-line treatment, but it is not usually applied if the patient fails to respond to medication.
The researchers point out that a ketogenic diet usually improve 50% of the epileptic seizures.
Nutritional Ketosis Improves Brain Health
Due to the neurotherapeutic and neuroprotective properties of fats, the brain will work better when burning fat rather than glucose. The fats can’t cross the blood brain barrier while ketones, being water-soluble are able to cross it and feed the brain. In this way, the systemic inflammation is reduced and people notice improved mental activity and cognition when experiencing nutritional ketosis.
Ketones are an ideal type of energy for those people who suffer from Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease as well as diabetes, because in these conditions, some neurons are insulin resistant and can’t utilize glucose so they die off. With the help of ketones, the neurons are able to survive and thrive.
The blood ketones do not need insulin to cross cell membranes, but with a simple diffusion they enter cells that are insulin resistant. That’s the reason why they work well for numerous neurological diseases. They are also promising for:
- Migraine: Ketogenic diet can reduce migraine headaches without using medications for pain.
- Traumatic brain injuries: It can lower the brain swelling, increase motor function and improve recovery.
Metabolic Conditions Improve on Ketogenic Diet
The nutritional ketosis is effective for correcting insulin resistance. If you experience at least three of the following criteria, you might be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome: elevated triglycerides, abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol or increased blood sugar.
The ketogenic diet can improve the nonalcoholic fatty liver disease which is a result of type 2 diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome. According to one study, obese people with metabolic syndrome improved their liver enzymes, blood pressure and weight after 4 months of ketogenic diet.
There are two conditions where the ketogenic diet can save people’s lives, glucose transporter and glycogen storage disease. In GSD, there is a lack of an enzyme that stores glucose as glycogen and breaks glycogen into glucose.
Ketogenic Diet Can Improve Hormonal and Nervous System Disorders
If the body has an effective fat burner, it will be able to regulate the hormonal and nervous disorders. The ketogenic diet can help, especially in case of PCOS, a condition that can develop insulin resistance, Medical News Today, diabetes, coronary artery syndrome, breast cancer, lipid disorders which are characterized by:
- Hyperinsulinemia (increased insulin levels)
- Increased production of androgen which can further promote facial hair and acne
- Lack of ovulation
- Obesity
One study points out that women who practiced ketogenic diet for six months lost at least 12% of their weight and reduced fasting insulin by 54%. The result was that at least 2 women out of 11 got pregnant despite this condition.
Nutritional Ketosis Can Be the Key to Cancer Prevention
Nowadays, cancer is one of the most rapidly spread type of disease that can devastate people’s lives. It has become one of the top killer diseases in the world. The medical experts are ignorant to the fact that most types of cancers root in mitochondrial and metabolic dysfunction. They root in poor diets and a toxic lifestyle.
Nutritional ketosis has become popular among the cancer researchers due to its immense potential in the prevention and treatment of cancer, combined with radiation and chemotherapy.
Thomas Seyfried, a leading academic researcher for cancer states that the mechanism by which this diet treats cancer is more clear than the treatment of epileptic seizures. Although effective, this treatment is barely recognized and never applied while it is an accepted treatment of epilepsy since 1920s.
Correction of Metabolic Dysfunction and Optimization of Mitochondrial Health, Ways for a Long, Healthy Life
The large number of mitochondria prevent the cells from proper functioning and promote development of various diseases. For some people, they can cause heart disease or diabetes; in others neurodegenerative disease or even cancer.
This diet will optimize the mitochondrial function and will correct the metabolic dysfunction of insulin and leptin resistance. In such cases, the dietary fat will not only serve as fuel, but it will build blocks for structural components of the body.
An excessive consumption of harmful fats such as processed vegetable oils can deteriorate the health of your body over time. So, for overall well-being turn to natural, unprocessed fats found in nuts, seeds, olives, butter, coconut oil, avocado, cacao butter or raw cacao.
Via Articles Mercola
