Tellit Likeitis

Norwitz's criticism aren't valid - and they ignore the massive red flag this study raises: a ketogenic diet induces lipid-driven metabolic reprogramming in part through a PPAR-delta linked transcriptional program. The long-term consequences of that remain poorly explored, and this study adds to the concern that it's not benign in some tissues. PPAR-delta is a master switch with a substantial and troubling cancer literature behind it. For example, episodic PPAR-delta activation is adaptive, as seen with exercise. That led to a search for exercise mimetics - exercise in a pill. GW1516 (aka cardarine) was identified as a powerful PPAR-delta agonist with endurance-enhancing benefits. But trials were halted due to rapid rapid cancer development. That's not to say that a ketogenic diet is equivalent to cardarine. But a long-term ketogenic diet may convert that intermittent response into a sustained transcriptional program. Should the chronic dietary activation of the same pathway be presumed safe? That's an open question this study addresses. My interpretation is that this fits ketosis better as a temporary metabolic state supporting metabolic flexibility than as a program to be driven long-term. To be clear, this study doesn't show that long-term ketogenic diets cause cancer in humans. But it does provide a biologically specific reason not to presume that chronic activation of this pathway is benign. And contrary to Norwitz's claims, these results are due to lipid overload, not something unique to the mouse diet, and is an unavoidable feature of a ketogenic diet. While ketones didn't drive the effect they also weren't protective.

Posts like this are certifiably retarded, as they implicitly take "ketogenic diets" to be one singular thing. Two individuals can eat very high-fat, low-carb ketogenic diets with distinct fatty acid profiles. Why does that matter? Individual fatty acids modulate gene expression, and other fatty acids drive DISTINCT gene expression changes. Two ketogenic diets with distinct fatty acid profiles will drive distinct changes in gene expression (not to mention other differences). There is no singular "ketogenic diet" that will always drive the same set of changes observed in the study Quartz is referring to, which used a high-PUFA, high-fat diet comprised largely of soybean oil and lard, both of which contain substantial Ω-6 PUFA content (linoleic acid). Linoleic acid itself modulates gene expression, and does so differently than any number of other fatty acids we could mention.

Nobody profits from telling you the body heals itself. So nobody tells you. Your taste buds are new every 10 to 14 days. The tongue reading this flavour is a fortnight old. Your stomach lining rebuilds every 3 to 5 days. Last week's gut is already gone. Your skin turns over every 4 weeks. You grew a whole new surface this month. Your white blood cells renew in days. Tonight's immune army was not on watch last week. Your red blood cells retire every 120 days. Four months, and the entire fleet is replaced. The fat built into your cell membranes turns over too. Years of stored seed oil can slowly be walked back out. Your liver just gets on with regenerating. It holds no grudge about the bad years. Your skeleton rebuilds over roughly ten years. The bones made in the worst years are not the ones you finish with. Every one of those rebuilds is made from what you feed it. Feed it meat, fat, sunlight and sleep, and it builds you strong. Feed it sugar, seed oil and the sofa, and it builds you soft. The body you will have next year is under construction right now. What you give it today is what it builds you into.

After my widowmaker at 52, my cardiologist wanted me on a statin. I said no. So he offered me Zetia. "It's not a statin," he said. "It just blocks cholesterol absorption in the gut. Fewer side effects. Your LDL will come down." Millions of people are on this drug right now thinking they're protecting themselves because they watch their LDL number drop every quarter. They feel safe. I looked at the trials. What I found should concern every person taking this drug. 🧵

If saturated fat clogged your arteries, you'd have far more immediate problems. Beef fat sets at around 30 degrees. You run at 37. So for the clogging to start, your core temperature has to fall seven degrees first. At 35 you are shivering uncontrollably. At 33 you are confused and slurring. At 30 you are unconscious, your heart is arrhythmic, and you have far bigger concerns than what you had for breakfast. The plaque theory only works on a patient who is already dying of something else entirely. Nobody has ever pulled a solid lump of Tuesday's dinner out of an artery, because the only body cold enough to hold one has stopped needing arteries. Turn the heating on. Have the steak.