Every week the media writes about a new study that tells us what we already know. This week the Washington Post provided two such examples. One about the increased risk of developing dementia and another about the benefits of the ketogenic diet on mental health (both discussed below).

It gets pretty exhausting seeing the same information published each week as if it’s ground breaking. And it’s maddening that despite everything we now know, or in the case of the ketogenic diet have known since the early 1900s, nothing changes in the one place that matters. Government.

Fake food is the most widely abused drug in the world and it’s completely unregulated. Walk into any store and buy as many hohos or Doritos as you want, or Super Size your Big Mac, fries, and soda at McDonalds. Contrast that to the last time you tried to buy some weed (assuming you have 👀), where they’ll check your ID, then make you wait in a holding pen to be escorted to the back, then check your ID again before making you point out what you want from behind the counter.

And that is not a comment on personal choice. It’s confirmation of how backwards our country has become. The thing that we know is killing us remains abundant, accessible, unregulated, AND subsidized by the government, while the thing that opens our mind, gets us in touch with ourselves, and has proven healing benefits remains highly taxed, regulated, expensive, and inaccessible to most.

Cheers to your practice.

James

“It’s not what’s in the food, it’s what’s been done to the food that matters.”

I just finished Metabolical, in which Robert Lustig, MD, MSL offers this straightforward advice: feed the gut, protect the liver. It reminds me of Michael Pollan’s equally simple advice: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

How do you feed your gut and protect your liver? Eat Real Food that’s high in fiber (food for your gut aka a prebiotic) and low in sugar (excess sugar in your diet ends up as stored fat in your liver which can lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease or even cancer).

88 percent of people are believed to be metabolically ill. Your metabolic health is a reflection of how well your mitochondria function, which is impacted by everything you put into your body as well as outside factors such as air pollution (as we’ll see in the dementia study below).

But the greatest impact right now is by far our food. Specifically ultra-processed fake food. So how do you know the difference between real food and fake food? Dr. Lustig provides this great breakdown to help distinguish between the two.

“Processed food is defined by seven engineering criteria:

1. mass produced

2. consistent batch to batch

3. consistent country to country

4. uses specialized ingredients from specialized companies

5. consists of pre-frozen macronutrients

6. must stay emulsified so that the fat and water do not later out

7. must have a long shelf life or freezer life”

Of the seven characteristics, numbers 2 and 3, consistent from batch to batch and country to country, stuck out to me the most. I think because when you realize the extent to which the ingredients must be manipulated to achieve that level of consistency, to produce millions of copies that are shelf stable enough to ship all around the world, the reality of how unnatural a process it is starts to set in.

Source(s):

Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine, by Robert H. Lustig, MD, MSL

Recommend reading with Food Fix, The Omnivores Dilemma, and Animal, Vegetable, Junk

A Dementia Study Confirms the Obvious

The study concluded that alcohol, air pollution, diabetes, sleep, weight, smoking, and blood pressure all play a role in the risk of developing dementia. The same factors that influence every other disease.

And while diet is given little mention throughout the article referenced, it is well documented that a diet rich in ultra-processed food and sugar plays an important role. Dr. Lustig frames it like this in Metabolical:

“Given the $290 billion annual cost of dementia in the US and that there've been 146 failed trials, it's almost laughable that we keep trying to develop a drug… New research shows that sugar consumption is associated with the development of Alzheimer's disease. It appears that fructose alters mitochondrial function in the brain, reducing energy generation, which puts the identified neuronal proteins amyloid and tau at risk for clump-ing, forming the classic neurofibrillary tangles of Alzheimer's. A processed food eating pattern has been shown to be predictive of future Alzheimer's disease, although no one has yet demonstrated that switching to Real Food lessens one's risk.”

Switching to Real Food has not yet been studied because there’s nothing to gain by demonstrating this truth. It’s a lot harder to make money selling broccoli than it is drugs. We know the answer’s but somehow we’re still looking for a solution.

Source(s):

Study finds 3 big risk factors for dementia

“High-fat keto diet may help people with serious mental illness”

Fun fact about the ketogenic diet, it was actually developed in the early 1900s by a physician looking to treat seizures in people suffering from epilepsy. The physician was looking for a way to mimic the known mental benefits of fasting, one of which was treating seizures, in a way that was sustainable long term. You can only fast for so long before you starve.

Since then it’s been used by intelligent and independently thinking psychiatrists like Chris Palmer, MD who discusses it in more detail in this podcast episode. He’s been treating his patient’s depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia for years with a strict ketogenic diet and it’s been life changing for his patients. They’ve been able to get off their drugs and experience relief that psychiatric drugs never gave them.

So the results of the clinical trial discussed in the Washington Post article shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has been paying attention.  

If you’ve ever fasted or been strictly keto, then you’ve likely felt these benefits. Mental clarity and, oddly enough because you aren’t eating, an increase in energy are chief among them. I’ve experimented with the ketogenic before for extended periods of time (3 - 24 months), and the results have always been the same for me. Huge benefits short term. Unsustainable long term.

Still, I think that keto is a good tool to keep in your toolbox. It can help you achieve short-term goals, and it’s a good way to reel yourself back in after going off the rails (like say after the holidays, or after a vacation). However, I’m convinced more and more each day that eating a Real Food balanced diet and focusing on intuitive eating (trying to dial into what your body is telling you you need) remain the best path towards a healthy and happy life.

The problem is that when you live in an environment abound with fake food and catchy marketing it’s very easy to slip into bad habits. Use diet techniques like keto, vegan, paleo, fasting, and others to reset your path.

Source(s):

High-fat keto diet may help people with serious mental illness