Low Carb/Ketogenic Diet has been very hot in the last few years. Here I share my experiences with Low Carb/Ketogenic diet for myself and a large number of patients for the 4 or 5 years.
There are 3 reasons why I recommend Low Carb/Ketogenic Diet:
1. Reduce carbohydrate and glucose intake. Low carb/KD is used for the management of metabolic diseases such as T2DM. This is very intuitive and is what most scholars, allied healthcare providers, patients and the general public recognize and are talking about. But even this straightforward appliction of KD (Diabetics have high blood sugar, and low-carbon/ketogenic diet will lower blood sugar level) is still controversial and has not been recognized and accepted by most doctors.
2. Reduce pollution caused by carbohydrate-rich foods, especially pesticides such as glyphosate, which are mainly in crops with high carbohydrate content. This type of contamination is the main cause of Leaky Gut, or Increased GI Permeability and Dysbiosis (gut bacteria imbalance). The latter is the root cause of many chronic diseases and can be found in nearly all chornic disease patients. This is more obvious in many autoimmune diseases. Most patients with autoimmune diseases have Leaky Gut, dysbiosis, increased oxidative stress, and mitochondrial function impairment. Mangement targeting these deficiencies (leaky gut, anti oxidants, mitochondrial nutrition) including low-carb/ketogenic diet, will often result in disease improvement. In fact, if you ask and check carefully, you will find that most patients with chronic diseases will have gastrointestinal problems. “Let food by thy medicine and medicine be thy food”, our ancestors have long recognized this relationship. Today this problem is even more obvious: due to the deterioration of our food quality and ever increasing pollution and contaminants. One can‘t be too careful about the food they eat.
3. Reduce the body’s dependence on glucose as the fuel supply, restore/promote body’s fat as energy supply. Under normal circumstances, we should use both glucose and fat as our fuels. The two mechanisms for the human body to release and burn glucose and fat as fuel should be efficient and effective. However, due to the excessive amount of calories in todya‘s processed foods, especially the excessive consumption of carbohydrates (glucose and fructose), the demand for our body to release and burn fat as energy is greatly reduced. Our body is supposed to store and release energy on a regular basis. But due to the excess calories that many people eat today, there is no need for these peoople to release their stored energy (fat). If they keep doing this for a prolonoged period of time, their body wil forget how to release and burn fat. Biologically this is called down-regulation of receptors and hormones important in fat metabolism. Think about this: a typical T2DM patient is overweight (his/her body has lots of fat stored). But when this diabetic patient misses a meal, s/he may develop low blood sugar, with hypoglycemic symptoms (such as headaches, fatigue, etc). Why? Because his/her body has been relying on sugar as energy for way too long and forgot how to utilized the vast energy source (fat). This is the root cause of the onset of diabetes, obesity, and many metabolic diseases.
Therefore, Low Carb/Ketogenic Diet is the FUNDAMENTAL part of my approach to the management and prevention of diseases, along with other anti-aging/functional medicine principles. For Anti-Aging/Functional Medicine, see my articles elsewhere on this blog.
