The essay focused on where eight physicians converge. Several readers rightly noted what it doesn't address.
Sarcopenia. Ray Falciola pointed out that older adults face age-related muscle loss while trying to implement these protocols. The physicians emphasize muscle as metabolically protective, but none directly addresses how to build muscle when biology is working against you. This is a real gap.
Long-term sustainability. Janet and others report that carb restriction worked initially, then failed—or caused harm—over years. The essay presents these protocols without discussing failure modes. Worth noting: the physicians themselves disagree on how restrictive to be. Nolte recommends 100g carbs for maintenance. Fung emphasizes food quality over strict carb limits. The essay could have made this range clearer.
Individual variation. What reverses one person's insulin resistance may destabilize another. The essay presents a fairly universal framework when the reality is messier.
The historical question. Kay and yantra asked why there was no obesity epidemic 60-70 years ago when people also ate sugar and processed foods. This suggests the insulin model may be incomplete—or that something else has changed (food composition, meal frequency, seed oils, environmental factors) that the essay doesn't explore.
These questions deserve their own essays. Thank you for the pushback.
"The historical question. Kay and yantra asked why there was no obesity epidemic 60-70 years ago when people also ate sugar and processed foods. This suggests the insulin model may be incomplete—or that something else has changed (food composition, meal frequency, seed oils, environmental factors) that the essay doesn't explore."
This is an excellent question which hardly ever gets asked. I believe that a large part of the answer is the great exposure to manmade radiation. Firstenberg goes into this in his book "The Invisible Rainbow".
Not mentioned: EXERCISE lots of it, no driving, sitting 8 hrs per day... lots of WALKING. Just got back from Spain. EVERYONE on my flight to the US from Spain was thin. ONLY the American passengers had landwhales full o blubber among them... why is that? EXERCISE. Spanish people walk more stairs, streets etc few cars, more hiking etc etc... Also a sneaky little note: They aren't allowed to kill the wheat before it ripens with glycophosphate that then contaminate the flour... so baked pasteries and breads are 'purer' if you want to think of it that way...
PS full disclosure, never able to gain weight, a tad hyperactive AND eat 3 bite o anything, leave 3 bites of all food on my plate and eat smaller portions. INOW I regulate what I eat and I eat to live, not live to eat...
Most of these diets the doctors talk about above are not optimal. Like Keto and carnivore etc. THEY JUST BECOME CALORIE RESTRICTED DIETS IN TIME TOO, WITH NO GLUCOSE OR LITTLE TO SUPPLY ENERGY ANYWAY. DUH. The protein and fat are very satiating so you just drop calories eventually because you are not eating. You get off toxic food—a big reason it seems to be working. Have no appetite eventually. Fat is not magic. This is not virtuous. This is garbage and they are too. Quacks. It works for a long time and then your energy, metabolism and thyroid crash. Insulin resistance becomes center stage. I’ve been 21/2 years to heal from this nonsense. I’m in a group of hundreds recovering from carb restriction, keto, carnivore. OMAD, IF, fasting, afraid of FRUIT For God’s Sake. Fruit is a combination of glucose and fructose. There is not much food we eat that IS pure fructose. Lustig fed his famous sad mice just fructose. Let me give you a little hint. On this nonsense, You use stress hormones to make glucose your body needs. Gluconeogenisis.. These stress hormones cortisol, adrenaline etc use another pathway—your liver to make energy.Plus takes from organs ,tissue, bones—I.e. scavenges your own body to make the fuel you can just eat. Glucose or glucose and fructose . You are not just burning fat. You do lose muscle. I went back to a sort of paleo eating and added some more fruit, good sugars just no bread and grains. They affect me. Added back carbs very very slow. There is some value to a fast here and there and always good to remove toxic modern food. That’s when I lost weight at first. Ditched the poison. The best thing you can do. But after the low carb thing screws you up, it’s much harder to get back where you belong.
They are wrong and I’m disgusted this is here to fool people, again. I did this 5 years and it all fell apart while eating this way. Sleep tanked (Yoo-hoo—stress hormones) broken bones, anxiety, crazy cardio doesn’t help. Weight gain. Big time. You can’t “do it harder” when it quits working. Restricting more isn’t the answer. Cutting out important glucose is not the answer. Running 24/7 on cortisol and adrenaline ? I don’t see any lions around these days needing quick energy. I feel much better now, my thyroid is healing. I get real nutrition from adding fruit and potatoes. Some rice. Even Paul Saladino, noted carnivore, has added fresh fruit and honey. I’ve started losing a little weight with increased energy and a healing metabolism. Restrict carbs to basically nothing and you will regret it, some sooner than later. . The science backs this. Just a warning. Check out Jay Feldman on YouTube or others raising the alarm. I read Kate Deering’s book first. Jay has 100 videos helping and explaining the real science.others are making changes. The post above is falling.
appreciate your taking the time to write this. It's good to have another opinion and especially good in this case because initially keto/carnivore might look good, feel good, weight loss happens. But... what about a year from now, 2 years, 5 years. I have been suspicious of these diets because they seem so far removed from what 2 different ancient healing systems tell us about diet: Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Promoters of this or that restricted way of eating lead you to believe that it's a forever diet, and they should not be saying that. We have to re-assess our way of eating on a regular basis. Thanks for your comment.
Over the past few years the fixation is on people with pre-diabetes; prone-to-diabetes from family background; and outright Type 2 diabetes.
But people with the opposite constitution, i.e., tendency toward hypoglycemia, are pretty much ignored. There are people who are so hypoglycemic (no matter what they eat or avoid eating) who have seizures from their hypoglycemia.
There is a fixation by (some) medical practitioners, such as the ones here, on daily diet as The Cure. But there are people, of both constitutional types, or any constitutional type, who just seem unable to stick to any highly restricted diet. They need help. TCM might be helpful here, in some cases, as TCM practitioners generally don't force a diet on you which you can't follow.
I have a bunch fat relatives who could never stick with any diet. So the doctors just blame them for being weak-willed. I blame the doctors for telling the patients that they have to just "do as you're told" instead of coming up with methods which will actually work, and which are suited to the individual sufferer. Do these non-pre-diabetic persons deserve to be abandoned?
Yes, I can relate. Had thyroid issues since my teens, and high blood pressure too, not to mention very heavy all my days and at 61, been trying to focus on it more consistently.
Also, could never stick to any kind of strict eating plan for long either. So far, best I have been able to do is the intermittent fasting. My goal is 14, which i can usually get to but it varies. I find some days I only get and others I've easily hit sixteen. I think the variety helps a bit so it helps. I think my body does need a rest from constant eating; I used to nibble all day except for sleeping. A bite or two here a few there, etc. A long drawn out lunch that would last till dinner. Not a ton of food just making the whole thing last too long.
Removing the toxic foods is this year's goal; slow but eventual progress is made, just need to keep going with it. A functional medicine doctor is high on my wish list, as well.
As for people on the other end of things, for a few decades my ex-husband was likely in that category. Today, at almost 66, and with a significant illness that renders him almost bedbound, he has diabetes. He still has the ability - and does - to eat large amounts of fast food with a lot less ill effects than if i were to try to eat like that. Not to mention smoking like a chimney.
Early in our marriage, I remember quite a few times where his blood sugar would drop low and he'd grab something like orange juice so he wouldn't pass out. So, it was a bit strange to me when he was told he was diabetic a couple years ago. He ignores it to the best of his ability, and it so far had not had a negative impact although I'm sure it might later.
Anyways, just wanted to say that all the doctors I've been to have been very quick to say, 'you really need to diet, you know' and any request for directions on that results in a version of 'just eat less.'
Yup, they are still talking to their patients as if they were little children who are not listening to mum 'n' dad. Sorry about your and your husband's woes. Keep at it; there's help out there but we just have to hunt for it.
Hmm. I was on a keto diet for awhile, but when I added things like butternut squash, potatoes, RAW milk, both fermented and with things like coffee or chicory root tea, and fruits, I felt a lot better. Now I am on what's called a Zone diet (Dr. Barry Sears) and it works. Monitoring protein seems to matter to me more than monitoring fats and I eat cereal grain carbs in amounts that trigger digestion and it really isn't much.
I think we ought to rethink dog obesity. Taking them off kibble only works sometimes. Taking the TCM approach, obesity is a phlegm issue so what is really needed is not calorie restriction, but a diet which breaks up phlegm and drains. We also need to change the way their bodies handle what they call 'dampness'. And the latter requires some supplementation of their adrenals. I'm willing to bet the same strategies or some variation of it will work for people.
We have had one dog and 6 cats (4 from 2002 to 2025, 2 new ones since June) on all raw diets. The trigger to get our 4 cats on raw came from one cat who had developed type II diabetes. He was on insulin. My wife asks the vet, what's going on, this is the second cat I've had that's developed diabetes. Vet said we don't know we think it might be the food. Wife researched online, found a vet who claimed all type Ii diabetic cats cured by getting them off kibble. So we put Juniper on canned food, no grain. Within a week he was going into insulin shock when he got his shot. We lowered the dose, still insulin shock. We stopped insulin completely, he came back to his old self, his weight returned to normal and he lived another 10 years, dying at the age of 21. Only problem was about every 3rd meal, he'd puke it all up. So we switched him and the other cats to all raw, mostly chicken with bones and some giblets.
The work around the rabies shot is to not license your pet. I’ve never licensed a pet (10) in 45 years of owning them. And never gotten found out. Bad laws were meant to be broken. I have family that trades boarding with me (if I didn’t I’d hire a trusted pet sitter) and I groom my two myself. Though I have had groomers over the years that simply didn’t ask or care. It’s not rocket science and very easy if you have the right tools (sheers, dremel etc) saves a TON of money. YouTube has tutorials based on your dog’s breed. It’s challenging to find a vet in case of emergency or altering but they are out there. I called around and found two who would spay my female without shots. Just be very sure of yourself and do not let them fear monger you into vaccines. Maybe it’s age, or confidence due to so much research, but I do not let them bully me any more. And so far my pets rarely need to see a vet. They’re super healthy. And for those who may not have heard the mrna crap is now in some pet vaccines (Nobivac NXT self amplifying rabies!) God help us all!
yep. my last cat lived to be 18. born outside of captivity. never vaxxed. outside as much as in. exposed to LOTS of other cats.
beware adoptees from the shelters (sorry, i know they need homes, but . . ) at least in cali, the "humane society" and probably most other adoption centers vaccinate them and even chip them pre-adoption.
Whodda thunk. Cats aren’t supposed to have grain based kitty food. You wonder sometimes if doctors (vets and the regular kind) go to school to learn medicine or unlearn common sense. Even the farm hand shoveling the manure knows cats don’t insist on a side dish of french fries or graham crackers with every mouse they catch.
grain, no. But it's the kibble that's the killer. You can give cats kibble with no grain, and those that are predisposed to develop diabetes will develop diabetes. Something about baking the kibble dry that changes the protein and causes the cat to treat it like sugar or starch. And really, kibble is about as far from a natural diet for a cat as you can get.
V. good info for persons who have cats. We used to have 5 cats. They all lived a long life even though they got fairly cheap food from a can. I believe that they lived a long time (oldest 21 years) because I never took them to the vet (except for one who had a rash on her neck because she apparently disliked a collar I had put on her. I took the damn thing off and the problem went away.)
These cats did not get vaccinated; also, they were allowed to go outside if they wanted (we lived in the country and there was no risk from traffic.)
I'm no cat expert or expert on anything really. Perhaps I'm cheap and old school. There was a generation (the one that raised my generation) that almost never went to doctors or took drugs unless necessary. You had to be at deaths door to even merit an aspirin. Otherwise "go to bed and sweat it out" was pretty much the deal. We all survived pretty healthy. Probably had a lot to do with hard times and the Great Depression etc. Doctors were a last not first resort. They went to the doctor and actually paid them out of pocket. Tends to focus the mind on what is necessary and what is not.
But I think you're on the money about the vaccines and pets. They are perhaps even worse for critters than they are for us but the answer to that question is a jump ball in any case. From what I've heard they are even more reckless injecting "none of your business" in to critters than they are with their lab rat owners. Hard to be more reckless than they are with our kids but it is a valid conversation that they may be even more reckless with your pets than your kid.... But I can't guarantee that. One size fits all I've heard in some cases and the size difference of critters is huge. THEN AGAIN with the lab rat owners they jab them up on day one almost before they are dry after delivery. Seems like they are coming at kids with needles while they're still tying off the umbilical. Never saw them do that to kittens. Watched my share of kittens, dogs and calves be born and it was always devoid of men with needles waiting to attack.
But it has been a long time since living on the farm. Back then the critters were more feral. Kittens and their parents tended to fend for themselves and the calves as I remember usually got at least a day or so before they started to inject them. On occasion a kitten would grow to be semi-domesticated because they realized life was easier if they were nice to those that fed them.
In any case I'm at this point TOTALLY anti-vax for us human lab rats and for the critters. If injecting not safe and not effective "none of your business" into humans is bad probably not good for our best friends and pets either. They don't need cancer causing oncogenes like SV40 any more than we humans need it but all we know about injections is it is none of our business and pay up or get out (if they go to a vet). Just don't see the point in jabbing up kittens and dogs anymore than jabbing up humans. YOU AND I have more chance of getting rabies for example than most domesticated cats and dogs. Lots if not most cats these days hang out under the bed whereas we humans go to clubs. You could get rabies or any dam thing in a night club. Cats are safe by comparison. Perhaps rural pets it is different but for all the apartment pets I see even if shots were effective which I highly doubt their chance of getting some of those diseases is higher for the owner than the pet. Far as I know I am not caught up on my rabies injections, Should I be?😁😁 Pretty sure lots of cats and dogs have to get rabies shots even though they never go out. Perhaps that has changed by I seem to remember taking the dogs for their rabies shots.
As far as carnivore pets eating carbs, probably the same deal but worse as with humans. Some humans can eat LOTS of pasta and do OK but many of us need to lean carnivore or at least keto or something to avoid complications of too many carbs. But a cat or dog is far more carnivore by nature than we are. Sure some can probably deal with some carbs but does not seem like something one should count on. Pretty sure cats and dogs for example can make their own Vitamin C whereas humans can't so they've adapted to not eating much in the way of plants. Humans NEED some plants and the argument is how much. But cats and dogs? Just seems intuitive they'd do better on fat and protein and bones than with excess plant base inputs. I've seen dogs chew on grass and cats like to mess with their catnip so perhaps they've evolved limited plant affinity. But would seem meat based is the way to go for them.
and while outside they could eat whatever they could catch. Also, cats nibble on grass and other plants. They likely got their "raw" requirements from whatever they could catch, even bugs, and also from nibbling on grass and other green things
Many interesting points, Janet! I wonder if this post would benefit those just staring out with understanding insulin resistance and weight gain? Maybe using the suggestions here would at least get a diabetic or someone struggling with weight issues on the right track? I think we need to figure out what works best for the individual since there are so many factors (past and present!) that play into our health ~ environment, stresses, toxins, availability of organic foods, etc ~ that it is impossible to have one solution for all. I appreciate that you shared other resources. I made note of them to share with family members who have some struggles. 👍🏼 The more tools we have access to, the better equipped we are to stay healthy.
It’s a very complicated issue. Diabetes was not my issue although as I was adding some carbs my blood test showed almost pre-diabetic. I’m not anymore. Insulin resistance is at the bottom of much of it. I was undereating and ultra low carb for at least 5 years. I started gaining weight at the end of it even though I was strict. I joined a program, Jay Feldman Wellness because I started having issues adding back carbs. He uses Ray Peat also but is a scientist in his own right. 100+ YouTube videos. His group of Hundreds are trying to get right with metabolism, thyroid damage and insulin resistance, most after being on these low carb, IF, fasting, etc. for lengths of time. After 21/2 years I’m finally stable and feeling better. I eat fruit again and potatoes. My thyroid is operating. My energy at 78 is all day. I have felt flim flammed by the gurus out there. I’m learning to accept some things because I feel so much better. We absolutely need glucose for optimal health and energy. Glucose created by gluconeogenisis uses stress hormones. I was never more stressed and anxious than when I was on strict keto. Losing muscle and bone too. So glad you are finding what works for you. This is my story, but I’m not alone. Ophra has injured her metabolism. Taking drugs or eating less and moving more won’t help this. I wish her luck.
Thank you for your input I like to hear everyone's stories it's very important to share information. We are all somewhat different in what we need to do, thank you for the U Tube referral I will check out that information as well
I am not sure what to make of some of Peat's ideas! He boasted of eating a quart of ice cream every day, but he claims that because he also consumed coconut oil he still lost weight. Not disagreeing, but, you know, if you read his entire article...well, let me know what you think!
Have you seen his many paintings? All are of naked women. Just saying.
Homemade ice cream without gums & stabilizers is pretty much the perfect food. Complete protein, calcium, carbohydrates, saturated fats, B vitamins. It’s a well balanced food that lowers oxidative stress and supplies the body with what it wants/needs to function optimally.
I have no opinion either way on what you say about natural, home - made ice cream, though you may certainly be correct. However, I don't recall Peat saying that he was consuming natural ice cream. He just said he was eating a quart "of ice cream" every day. Could've been some ghastly cheap stuff.
I have yet to encounter a health adviser who understands that "not one size fits all". Peat, too, seems to be in that category. He says it's healthful to eat saturated fat, avoid starches for the most part, lots of orange juice, coconut fat is miraculous, etc., no legumes or grains, get at least 80 grams of protein per day, etc.
I am not as yet convinced that everyone benefits from that type of diet forever. He does not specify if this is a temporary healing diet or not; he makes it sounds like yet another forever diet. If he has said otherwise then I apologize. Also, his scientific explanation for his viewpoints on what humans should eat goes way over my head. Do we have to be PhD-level scientists to know how to eat in a simple, normal, human way? I hope not.
I’d suggest checking out bioenergetic.life and listening to some of his interviews with Patrick Timpone or on KMUD if you want to start to get acquainted with his work
This article is beyond my comprehension. Not in the slightest bit revelatory. Just more dogma and pushing towards eventual metabolic dysfunction.
I’m absolutely loving the comments thread! Lots of people who are on the other side of restrictive diets and using their own intuition and common sense to heal!
very interesting. i remember back in the 70s when "Dr Atkins diet revolution" was the craze (basically keto) there was a consistent warning that being in ketosis was harmful to health - that circulating ketones wreaked some kind of havoc in the body. a quick search reveals that the simplest ketone is acetone - you know, a solvent used as fingernail polish remover!
and now people aim to be in ketosis non-stop? i dunno, sounds sketchy to me.
I’ve been a type 1 diabetic on insulin for nearly 50 years and at 66, I weigh 8st. I’ve watched type 2 diabetics amongst family and friends being given insulin therapy and warned them all that they would just put on weight and worsen their insulin resistance and I’ve always been proved right but no-one listened to me. It’s not rocket science although the doctors you refer to in the essay make it sound so. This all happens because doctors/nurses spend too much time thinking just about keeping blood sugar low irrespective of weight gain. As the other commentator here suggests, keeping glucose levels low creates stress and anxiety, I know how uncomfortable that is and it’s also dangerous. The brain uses more carbs than any other organ and to keep it in a hypo state is unhealthy. Over the years I have been shocked at how little the medical profession understands glucose metabolism and even basic nutrition. The pharma companies are to blame because they make a lot of money from theses t2 diabetics on expensive insulins and it guarantees them an increasing income stream until the patient dies an early death. The nurses and doctors in general practice are taught diabetic management by the pharma companies so we shouldn’t be surprised that their knowledge is limited and biased towards insulin supplementation.
My husband had pre diabetes and started wearing a CGM last year in order to help him lose weight. Being mindful of his blood sugar helped him to lose 30 lbs and the happy side effects included no more migraines (after 20 yrs!) or awful acid reflux, and he even got rid of debilitating sciatic and back pain. Not on any meds at all. I started wearing one recently bc at 56 I thought maybe I had elevated blood sugars as well. Turns out, not even close. I read The Zone 30 yrs ago and have, since that time, almost always been mindful of how/what I eat, so the CGM showed that my insulin response is pretty much perfect. I never spike out of the healthy range. The widely available CGM is the best tool for health that has come on the market in my memory.
One of the most effective means of biofeedback there is. Even if you don’t have any issues, … yet, at least no issues that you are aware, if you have that CGM letting you the horror show going on under the hood you probably can easily and effectively change your behavior and your metabolic situation without that much drama or effort. But first step is you need to know you’re headed for a cliff. One of my biggest issues with modern medicine as regards blood sugar and metabolic issues that will be in the cards for most of us if we don’t have our eye on the ball is that by the time we are warned by doctors (perhaps when A1c is 5.7-6.0) we’ve probably been in a state of insulin resistance a long time. IE you’re not officially “diabetic” but the damage is already happening. Nothing beats an early warning system to allow you to apply the brakes on your excesses in time
Exactly! My husband had high numbers for a long time but the doc basically said that he couldn't prescribe him a CGM until he was actually diabetic. ("pre diabetes is not a diagnosis" or something like that). With the CGM and a very disciplined approach to eating (no sugar, no alcohol, low carb and whole unprocessed foods) it took him about 8 months to get his insulin response to improve.
I read someone's book one time and it revealed that the obsession's with "the sugar" (as my mom called it before eventually dying from the consequences), ... the obsession with sugar is in many ways a distraction from the other real bad guy, "the insulin". Hyperinsulemia is often (perhaps usually for all I know) the problem LONG BEFORE "the sugar" starts to clinically manifest in ways that get people's and doctors' attention.
And insulin in it's own way is as much of a "toxin" as sugar. It causes it's own set of harms and consequences same as sugar causes sticky glycated proteins and all sorts of other horrors. For one thing, as long as the insulin is high you are laying down fat rather than being able to burn it. It is way more complicated than that but the cliff notes point is we should be looking at insulin with the same obsessive vigor (if not more) as we focus on sugar because high insulin (on average over time) is a early warning sign you are headed for trouble.
Cliff notes again, if it is taking way more than normal amounts of insulin to keep your sugar in check you have a problem. IE, your sugar can look perfectly normal and perfectly in control and yet metabolically you're in serious trouble if your pancreas has to spray you down with high levels of insulin to control it. IE, you're "in control", but just barely. By the time systems start to fail (for example the pancreas gets exhausted) in a clinical way you already have been in trouble a long time before the failure.. "Failure" is defined clinically as a high A1C or some other marker but mileage (advice) varies according to the practitioner.
A friend of mine went to a functional medicine doctor and what he did rather than just measuring fasting sugar or A1X or whatever is standard was measure both sugar and insulin response over time. More complicated by far more informative. By knowing how much insulin it takes to control the sugar they learn things that measuring sugar alone can not reveal.
Bottom line is hyperinsulemia is just as if not more important than high sugar because it shows where things are headed way early. And insulin is NOT the benign thing we think it is. Yes we need it to survive but if it is ALWAYS high (even if our sugar is under control) it will be dam near impossible to lose weight.
At any rate. Lots of us have warning signs that are flashing red in our thirties and forties but we seem generally "ok" that I suspect lots of doctors don't call out till we are in our fifties and sixties and lots of damage has already been hitting the fan for a while. Get the metabolism in order and all sorts of things like weight and blood pressure etc often start to magically go away.
At any rate this is just my lay person understanding of it. Short story is we should not ignore insulin because it is a early warning marker (as I understand it). By just focusing on sugar (A1C, morning fasting sugar etc) we can get lulled in to thinking every thing is OK when it may be almost off the rails.
Very, very interesting comments. But for a more encompassing view, go to Chinese Medicine. They deal in syndromes called Patterns of Disharmony, not individual symptoms such as "high blood sugar" as if that's all there is to it, as you point out.
Some people will never get diabetes. Never. It is genetic, these things.
Thanks! I'll check in to it. It almost never is a single thing. In fact the thing you treat may be irrelevant to your real problem. As one of the many things I've read but gets a bit foggy, someone said something like "fix your metabolic issue and your blood pressure issue will often disappear". In western medicine we'll often throw a blood pressure reduction drug at it when the real problem is you need to lose weight and get your sugar/insulin in order. Everything is connected. You mess up your liver for example and your first problem may show up in kidneys or something seemingly unrelated. We don't do a good job of thinking about root causes. Instead we treat the end point of the cause
Absolutely - we ordered his through levels.com and they provide a very good Dexcom CGM. I tried a different company called Lingo, it's a little bit cheaper. Seems to be fine but not sure it's as good as the Levels program. Either one would be worth it.
Or radiation poisoning. Or parasitic laden water. Or lipid nano particles. Unless you are exception ally wealthy you cannot realistically consume Piedmontese beef; a single 11 oz steak is over $37. You also cannot regularly consume uncontaminated produce based on lack of availability. Your farmers market growers are selling produce that has been subject to heavy metals from the skies and god knows what in the water and planted in dead soil aka dirt. Fat is great for the brain and nervous system but try sourcing fat that isn't preloaded with bioweapons. Anyone checked the price of "grass fed butter" from a country that doesn't inject the dairy cows or feed it crap feed? Before tariffs we are at over $10/lb. If we don't redirect the conversation and education to food SOURCING and PRODUCTION and instead continue to place blame on the disenfranchised human and big pharma we will only see this trend worsen.
Starvation is around the next corner and Big Ag/Pharma ain't gonna save ya.
Excellent and important article Unbekoming. However, these doctors/scientists are missing a big part of the picture.
Everyone seems to want to think that the current epidemic of diabetes and obesity is mostly due to modern bad eating habits.
The diet wasn't that much better 65 to 70 years ago. Lots of sugar, way more hydrogenated fats (margarine and crisco) and lots of nitrate-processed meats. Yet there was much less obesity and diabetes, fat children were rare, and the morbidly obese were almost never seen. Most kids and many adults drank heavily sugared "soda pop" regularly. Lots of children got "hostess cupcakes" or "twinkies" in their bag lunches along with potato chips.
Instant chemical and artificial color-laden packaged foods were the new great thing and most busy mothers with an average of 3 kids used them. "Better living thru chemistry" was the ubiquitous Dupont slogan.
Wireless radiation is the huge invisible component of the health mess. Chronic blue light exposure and lack of natural unfiltered sunlight compound the problem. Many animal and human studies have demonstrated the many ways these modern technologies damage and dysregulate our bodies on a cellular and mitochondrial level, thus leading to metabolic disorder, diabetes and obesity.
It's likely that the implanted CGMs (continuous glucose monitors) will actually make people even sicker due to the metabolic impairment from their near-constant wireless signals. Doctors promoting such devices might consider encouraging awareness about wireless radiation risks rather than promoting even more close-range exposure in the name of "healthcare".
Glyphosate, GMO foods, toxic chemical additives and aerosol spraying of chemicals 24/7- EMF saturating our environment = stress = cortisol spiking non stop = more fat needed by body for defense and protection = weight gain. Our health is being INTENTIONALLY DESTROYED via weapons.
The lean body mass retention or even building it is one of the most tricky for older adults because on top of everything else sarcopenia is starting to set in (loss of lean body mass with age). One has to lose the weight while trying to retain or even gain lean body mass as age is trying to defeat your efforts. It gets tricky.
Because I’m old, I remember when no one was fat, and people ate carbs all the time. Something else is going on that these physicians aren’t addressing.
Our normal way of eating was distinct meals, not snacks every half hour to 'keep us going' - and sometimes we got sent to our rooms with no supper - no one worried that the little darlings were going to suffer horribly because of missing a meal
Many people with metabolic disorder don’t overeat, don’t snack, and eat the best quality food they can get (direct from farmers, organic, only raw dairy, etc., etc.). My husband and I fall into that category. Two meals a day, eating only when we’re hungry, prioritizing protein. Eating the way we do 50 years ago, we would have been slimmer than we are.
Glyphosate, which is nearly unavoidable. Massive amounts of chemicals, no matter how clean you try to live. GMOs. The plastic load we carry. And probably more that we don’t know about. We are being poisoned.
Really nice synthesis, but we keep repeating the same mistake in nutrition debates. We look for a single villain. Insulin. Carbs. Fat. Protein. When biology does not work that way.
People are born different, live different lives, and arrive at diets from very different physiological and emotional states. The same diet can heal one person and destabilise another.
At the root of most chronic disease, and even of cravings for foods the body does not actually need, is cumulative load. Toxicity. Ultra-processed food. Industrial seed oils. Constant eating. And simply overwhelming a system that was never designed to process this volume or frequency of input.
What is consistently missed is what sits upstream of diet altogether.
Circadian biology. Light and dark cycles. EMF exposure. Sleep timing. Movement. Nervous system tone. Our separation from the natural world.
Leptin is a good example. It is not primarily a calorie hormone. It is a light-, timing-, and circadian-regulated signal. Morning sunlight, darkness at night, proper sleep, meal timing, and environmental cues all determine whether leptin works or fails. You cannot fix leptin resistance with macros alone.
Many people now live almost entirely indoors, under artificial light, eating late, staring at screens, rarely touching the earth, often afraid of the sun. Yet sunlight, darkness, and contact with nature are not optional lifestyle extras. They are core biological inputs.
Until these foundations are addressed, diet wars will continue to go in circles. Not because people are stupid or dishonest, but because the frame itself is incomplete.
I’m about a third of the way thru Ben Bickman’s book Why We Get Sick. While I agree that insulin is the flame, carbohydrates are the fuel. So the ultimate cause of insulin resistance is over consumption of carbs, add to that toxic seeds oils, and you have a killer combo.
Blood sugar, insulin, weight gain - all problems of our times. One wonders why in past centuries obesity was both considered as a sign of opulence, and as such as beauty (Rembrandt): well fed people were healthy. And why even 60-70 years ago were there so few obese people compared to today?
I notice the most obesity in the western world where junk food, excess sugar and salt are part of the lifestyle of people. Add to that an extremely sedentary life and poor quality produce (too many pesticides, preservatives, poor soil nutrients) and we have a total disaster for not only insulin, fat, and so on, but for health in general.
To all that I would like to add the mental-emotional component as you cannot separate the body of a person from his inner psychological state. Our agitation affects hormone production. Constant agitation day in and day out causes constant function disruption - the body adapts its functions to respond to the agitation signals! The science of what exactly happens when we are affected by one or another kind of stress is complex, but the principle is pretty common sense.
May I offer yet another view on what drives insulin and blood sugar - that of German New Medicine and Dr. Hamer. He spent his whole life researching which kinds of mental distress signals trigger what type of reactions in the organs and functions of the body. Here is the description of the kind of distress that disrupts blood sugar levels, insulin and so on: https://learninggnm.com/SBS/documents/pancreas.html#Apha_Islet_Cells_PCL
You can read about the mechanics of what happens, but the main trigger are emotions related to FEAR, DISGUST, RESISTANCE. It is not as simple as saying that feeling those you get diabetes, but living in the kind of situation that constantly evokes those feelings all the time can disrupt blood sugar regularly enough to cause this problem to persist.
Then come the diets and lifestyle changes - yes, they will help those of us who have overcome the above mental-emotional triggers. But most people continue living with the same thoughts and life circumstances no matter what physical changes they try. As with any disease one has to take into account the WHOLE individual, not just the body mechanics. We can delve into minute cells and their minute functions, but if you isolate them from the whole body, you lose the picture and if you isolate the physical from the inner and outer environment of the person, you get partial answers to the problem.
Many therapists today are beginning to explore these connections. Mainstream medicine does not. Doctors are not trained to explore the living conditions or personality of their patients or what bothers them. Alternative therapies, ancient healing systems, they all incorporate and accentuate those factors, nothing is isolated on its own - because nothing functions in isolation.
If we work on the body but the mind continues to send distress signals, our very complex physical organism will respond to those signals no matter what we do. When you add the mental/emotional perspective to emerging modern therapies (which is happening more and more) you begin to see that physiology on its own, as it is used today (in extreme materialistic and mechanistic ways) is not enough. And you will begin to see what scientists with diplomas fail to even consider - that life includes our feelings and lifestyle and not just our body mechanics. Because nothing in life is THAT complicated...
"And you will begin to see what scientists with diplomas fail to even consider - that life includes our feelings and lifestyle and not just our body mechanics."
A very interesting post. Everybody produces cures - but they all use different techniques. We should not think of this as strange. Something as complex a diabetes - it even has many different names and variations - has many different causes and consequences, and causes changes that are new, different causes. Only a cure can prove a cause.
I found the introduction interesting, the inability to gain muscle after a massive weight loss. But you didn't address this problem at all? Did any of these researchers tackle the muscle issue, or was the focus only on fat?
wasn't me who said it. Iva Brain wrote "Plants are fucking poison". I was just responding to that absurdity. We know that plants are not poison. Entire populations have lived their entire lives on plants. We know that plants can be healing, plants make medicine, plants make our food taste delicious. So yes, I was mocking the statement "Plants are fucking poison". I mean really, why would anyone even think such a thing, much less post a statement like that in these comments?!
Oh, I know that YOU never said such a silly thing! I think it's great that you eat nothing but plants and are doing well. Do you take any supplements?
One thing I notice nowadays (past few years): Just about everyone and his dog has all fake teeth. Even young people in their 30s and 40s. WT heck is going on????Used to be if you had cavities, they filled them; if you had teeth pulled, you got a partial. If they were badly crooked, they got straightened. But now, the latest fad, costing many tens of thousands of dollars, is implants. Total tooth replacement, all top teeth & bottom teeth. They look so phony.
plant based. 95% of what I eat is plants. There have been times when I've been 100% plants. These days I'm able to get raw milk. I give it the Ayurvedic treatment: add turmeric, a couple of dates, sometimes add a little cinnamon, and slowly bring it to a boil. I know, I know, boil raw milk?! But the main reason I get it is number one, it's from Jersey cows, and number two it's not homogenized. Supplements. That has changed over the years. I don't take anything every day, but I do take Vit D and K2 fairly regularly. Also Magnesium and zinc. I've used various herbs over the years, but again nothing every day. I might do Reishi for a few days, or astragalus, or Rhodiola. Astragalus is the only one I actually notice an effect from, but it's very subtle. One thing we've kept on hand since reading about its efficacy against covid is Black Seed oil. If we feel like we're coming down with something, take a teaspoon of that and it seems to knock out whatever was coming on.
That's an interesting and obviously effective health regimen you've got there! Re prevention of colds and flus, when I feel it's coming on, I take home-made Fire Cider. Boy, does that work!!! And spite of its hotness, it does taste good.
Add to this list the work of Derrick Lonsdale and Chandler Marrs. They co-authored the book, Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition, and Marrs has a website “Hormones Matter”
Having incorporated most of their strategies, I've been seeing the best results from following those suggested by Dr. Sean O'Mara. He's also arguably the healthiest for his age and the most transformed from when he was a SADly diseased 48 year old MD. The thing is, his strategies are also the most "hard core". His goal is Health Optimization, not just normalization. Highly recommend! 💪🏻
Author's note:
The essay focused on where eight physicians converge. Several readers rightly noted what it doesn't address.
Sarcopenia. Ray Falciola pointed out that older adults face age-related muscle loss while trying to implement these protocols. The physicians emphasize muscle as metabolically protective, but none directly addresses how to build muscle when biology is working against you. This is a real gap.
Long-term sustainability. Janet and others report that carb restriction worked initially, then failed—or caused harm—over years. The essay presents these protocols without discussing failure modes. Worth noting: the physicians themselves disagree on how restrictive to be. Nolte recommends 100g carbs for maintenance. Fung emphasizes food quality over strict carb limits. The essay could have made this range clearer.
Individual variation. What reverses one person's insulin resistance may destabilize another. The essay presents a fairly universal framework when the reality is messier.
The historical question. Kay and yantra asked why there was no obesity epidemic 60-70 years ago when people also ate sugar and processed foods. This suggests the insulin model may be incomplete—or that something else has changed (food composition, meal frequency, seed oils, environmental factors) that the essay doesn't explore.
These questions deserve their own essays. Thank you for the pushback.
"The historical question. Kay and yantra asked why there was no obesity epidemic 60-70 years ago when people also ate sugar and processed foods. This suggests the insulin model may be incomplete—or that something else has changed (food composition, meal frequency, seed oils, environmental factors) that the essay doesn't explore."
This is an excellent question which hardly ever gets asked. I believe that a large part of the answer is the great exposure to manmade radiation. Firstenberg goes into this in his book "The Invisible Rainbow".
Not mentioned: EXERCISE lots of it, no driving, sitting 8 hrs per day... lots of WALKING. Just got back from Spain. EVERYONE on my flight to the US from Spain was thin. ONLY the American passengers had landwhales full o blubber among them... why is that? EXERCISE. Spanish people walk more stairs, streets etc few cars, more hiking etc etc... Also a sneaky little note: They aren't allowed to kill the wheat before it ripens with glycophosphate that then contaminate the flour... so baked pasteries and breads are 'purer' if you want to think of it that way...
I think that exercise and food quality are factors, for sure.
PS full disclosure, never able to gain weight, a tad hyperactive AND eat 3 bite o anything, leave 3 bites of all food on my plate and eat smaller portions. INOW I regulate what I eat and I eat to live, not live to eat...
Most of these diets the doctors talk about above are not optimal. Like Keto and carnivore etc. THEY JUST BECOME CALORIE RESTRICTED DIETS IN TIME TOO, WITH NO GLUCOSE OR LITTLE TO SUPPLY ENERGY ANYWAY. DUH. The protein and fat are very satiating so you just drop calories eventually because you are not eating. You get off toxic food—a big reason it seems to be working. Have no appetite eventually. Fat is not magic. This is not virtuous. This is garbage and they are too. Quacks. It works for a long time and then your energy, metabolism and thyroid crash. Insulin resistance becomes center stage. I’ve been 21/2 years to heal from this nonsense. I’m in a group of hundreds recovering from carb restriction, keto, carnivore. OMAD, IF, fasting, afraid of FRUIT For God’s Sake. Fruit is a combination of glucose and fructose. There is not much food we eat that IS pure fructose. Lustig fed his famous sad mice just fructose. Let me give you a little hint. On this nonsense, You use stress hormones to make glucose your body needs. Gluconeogenisis.. These stress hormones cortisol, adrenaline etc use another pathway—your liver to make energy.Plus takes from organs ,tissue, bones—I.e. scavenges your own body to make the fuel you can just eat. Glucose or glucose and fructose . You are not just burning fat. You do lose muscle. I went back to a sort of paleo eating and added some more fruit, good sugars just no bread and grains. They affect me. Added back carbs very very slow. There is some value to a fast here and there and always good to remove toxic modern food. That’s when I lost weight at first. Ditched the poison. The best thing you can do. But after the low carb thing screws you up, it’s much harder to get back where you belong.
They are wrong and I’m disgusted this is here to fool people, again. I did this 5 years and it all fell apart while eating this way. Sleep tanked (Yoo-hoo—stress hormones) broken bones, anxiety, crazy cardio doesn’t help. Weight gain. Big time. You can’t “do it harder” when it quits working. Restricting more isn’t the answer. Cutting out important glucose is not the answer. Running 24/7 on cortisol and adrenaline ? I don’t see any lions around these days needing quick energy. I feel much better now, my thyroid is healing. I get real nutrition from adding fruit and potatoes. Some rice. Even Paul Saladino, noted carnivore, has added fresh fruit and honey. I’ve started losing a little weight with increased energy and a healing metabolism. Restrict carbs to basically nothing and you will regret it, some sooner than later. . The science backs this. Just a warning. Check out Jay Feldman on YouTube or others raising the alarm. I read Kate Deering’s book first. Jay has 100 videos helping and explaining the real science.others are making changes. The post above is falling.
appreciate your taking the time to write this. It's good to have another opinion and especially good in this case because initially keto/carnivore might look good, feel good, weight loss happens. But... what about a year from now, 2 years, 5 years. I have been suspicious of these diets because they seem so far removed from what 2 different ancient healing systems tell us about diet: Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Promoters of this or that restricted way of eating lead you to believe that it's a forever diet, and they should not be saying that. We have to re-assess our way of eating on a regular basis. Thanks for your comment.
Over the past few years the fixation is on people with pre-diabetes; prone-to-diabetes from family background; and outright Type 2 diabetes.
But people with the opposite constitution, i.e., tendency toward hypoglycemia, are pretty much ignored. There are people who are so hypoglycemic (no matter what they eat or avoid eating) who have seizures from their hypoglycemia.
There is a fixation by (some) medical practitioners, such as the ones here, on daily diet as The Cure. But there are people, of both constitutional types, or any constitutional type, who just seem unable to stick to any highly restricted diet. They need help. TCM might be helpful here, in some cases, as TCM practitioners generally don't force a diet on you which you can't follow.
I have a bunch fat relatives who could never stick with any diet. So the doctors just blame them for being weak-willed. I blame the doctors for telling the patients that they have to just "do as you're told" instead of coming up with methods which will actually work, and which are suited to the individual sufferer. Do these non-pre-diabetic persons deserve to be abandoned?
Yes, I can relate. Had thyroid issues since my teens, and high blood pressure too, not to mention very heavy all my days and at 61, been trying to focus on it more consistently.
Also, could never stick to any kind of strict eating plan for long either. So far, best I have been able to do is the intermittent fasting. My goal is 14, which i can usually get to but it varies. I find some days I only get and others I've easily hit sixteen. I think the variety helps a bit so it helps. I think my body does need a rest from constant eating; I used to nibble all day except for sleeping. A bite or two here a few there, etc. A long drawn out lunch that would last till dinner. Not a ton of food just making the whole thing last too long.
Removing the toxic foods is this year's goal; slow but eventual progress is made, just need to keep going with it. A functional medicine doctor is high on my wish list, as well.
As for people on the other end of things, for a few decades my ex-husband was likely in that category. Today, at almost 66, and with a significant illness that renders him almost bedbound, he has diabetes. He still has the ability - and does - to eat large amounts of fast food with a lot less ill effects than if i were to try to eat like that. Not to mention smoking like a chimney.
Early in our marriage, I remember quite a few times where his blood sugar would drop low and he'd grab something like orange juice so he wouldn't pass out. So, it was a bit strange to me when he was told he was diabetic a couple years ago. He ignores it to the best of his ability, and it so far had not had a negative impact although I'm sure it might later.
Anyways, just wanted to say that all the doctors I've been to have been very quick to say, 'you really need to diet, you know' and any request for directions on that results in a version of 'just eat less.'
Yup, they are still talking to their patients as if they were little children who are not listening to mum 'n' dad. Sorry about your and your husband's woes. Keep at it; there's help out there but we just have to hunt for it.
Thanks much. Yes, have to focus on it closely since advice seems to change almost fault. Best of luck.
Thanx, Maureen. Best to you, as well.
me too. not to mention what harm being in chronic ketosis can do (remember Dr Atkins?)
I do remember him! Didn’t he die from a stroke related to atrial fibrillation? Fell and banged his head, I believe.
No he fell
Yes see above comment where I said he fell and hit his head. He was on blood thinners due to a fib
Hmm. I was on a keto diet for awhile, but when I added things like butternut squash, potatoes, RAW milk, both fermented and with things like coffee or chicory root tea, and fruits, I felt a lot better. Now I am on what's called a Zone diet (Dr. Barry Sears) and it works. Monitoring protein seems to matter to me more than monitoring fats and I eat cereal grain carbs in amounts that trigger digestion and it really isn't much.
I think we ought to rethink dog obesity. Taking them off kibble only works sometimes. Taking the TCM approach, obesity is a phlegm issue so what is really needed is not calorie restriction, but a diet which breaks up phlegm and drains. We also need to change the way their bodies handle what they call 'dampness'. And the latter requires some supplementation of their adrenals. I'm willing to bet the same strategies or some variation of it will work for people.
We have had one dog and 6 cats (4 from 2002 to 2025, 2 new ones since June) on all raw diets. The trigger to get our 4 cats on raw came from one cat who had developed type II diabetes. He was on insulin. My wife asks the vet, what's going on, this is the second cat I've had that's developed diabetes. Vet said we don't know we think it might be the food. Wife researched online, found a vet who claimed all type Ii diabetic cats cured by getting them off kibble. So we put Juniper on canned food, no grain. Within a week he was going into insulin shock when he got his shot. We lowered the dose, still insulin shock. We stopped insulin completely, he came back to his old self, his weight returned to normal and he lived another 10 years, dying at the age of 21. Only problem was about every 3rd meal, he'd puke it all up. So we switched him and the other cats to all raw, mostly chicken with bones and some giblets.
The work around the rabies shot is to not license your pet. I’ve never licensed a pet (10) in 45 years of owning them. And never gotten found out. Bad laws were meant to be broken. I have family that trades boarding with me (if I didn’t I’d hire a trusted pet sitter) and I groom my two myself. Though I have had groomers over the years that simply didn’t ask or care. It’s not rocket science and very easy if you have the right tools (sheers, dremel etc) saves a TON of money. YouTube has tutorials based on your dog’s breed. It’s challenging to find a vet in case of emergency or altering but they are out there. I called around and found two who would spay my female without shots. Just be very sure of yourself and do not let them fear monger you into vaccines. Maybe it’s age, or confidence due to so much research, but I do not let them bully me any more. And so far my pets rarely need to see a vet. They’re super healthy. And for those who may not have heard the mrna crap is now in some pet vaccines (Nobivac NXT self amplifying rabies!) God help us all!
yep. my last cat lived to be 18. born outside of captivity. never vaxxed. outside as much as in. exposed to LOTS of other cats.
beware adoptees from the shelters (sorry, i know they need homes, but . . ) at least in cali, the "humane society" and probably most other adoption centers vaccinate them and even chip them pre-adoption.
Whodda thunk. Cats aren’t supposed to have grain based kitty food. You wonder sometimes if doctors (vets and the regular kind) go to school to learn medicine or unlearn common sense. Even the farm hand shoveling the manure knows cats don’t insist on a side dish of french fries or graham crackers with every mouse they catch.
grain, no. But it's the kibble that's the killer. You can give cats kibble with no grain, and those that are predisposed to develop diabetes will develop diabetes. Something about baking the kibble dry that changes the protein and causes the cat to treat it like sugar or starch. And really, kibble is about as far from a natural diet for a cat as you can get.
V. good info for persons who have cats. We used to have 5 cats. They all lived a long life even though they got fairly cheap food from a can. I believe that they lived a long time (oldest 21 years) because I never took them to the vet (except for one who had a rash on her neck because she apparently disliked a collar I had put on her. I took the damn thing off and the problem went away.)
These cats did not get vaccinated; also, they were allowed to go outside if they wanted (we lived in the country and there was no risk from traffic.)
I'm no cat expert or expert on anything really. Perhaps I'm cheap and old school. There was a generation (the one that raised my generation) that almost never went to doctors or took drugs unless necessary. You had to be at deaths door to even merit an aspirin. Otherwise "go to bed and sweat it out" was pretty much the deal. We all survived pretty healthy. Probably had a lot to do with hard times and the Great Depression etc. Doctors were a last not first resort. They went to the doctor and actually paid them out of pocket. Tends to focus the mind on what is necessary and what is not.
But I think you're on the money about the vaccines and pets. They are perhaps even worse for critters than they are for us but the answer to that question is a jump ball in any case. From what I've heard they are even more reckless injecting "none of your business" in to critters than they are with their lab rat owners. Hard to be more reckless than they are with our kids but it is a valid conversation that they may be even more reckless with your pets than your kid.... But I can't guarantee that. One size fits all I've heard in some cases and the size difference of critters is huge. THEN AGAIN with the lab rat owners they jab them up on day one almost before they are dry after delivery. Seems like they are coming at kids with needles while they're still tying off the umbilical. Never saw them do that to kittens. Watched my share of kittens, dogs and calves be born and it was always devoid of men with needles waiting to attack.
But it has been a long time since living on the farm. Back then the critters were more feral. Kittens and their parents tended to fend for themselves and the calves as I remember usually got at least a day or so before they started to inject them. On occasion a kitten would grow to be semi-domesticated because they realized life was easier if they were nice to those that fed them.
In any case I'm at this point TOTALLY anti-vax for us human lab rats and for the critters. If injecting not safe and not effective "none of your business" into humans is bad probably not good for our best friends and pets either. They don't need cancer causing oncogenes like SV40 any more than we humans need it but all we know about injections is it is none of our business and pay up or get out (if they go to a vet). Just don't see the point in jabbing up kittens and dogs anymore than jabbing up humans. YOU AND I have more chance of getting rabies for example than most domesticated cats and dogs. Lots if not most cats these days hang out under the bed whereas we humans go to clubs. You could get rabies or any dam thing in a night club. Cats are safe by comparison. Perhaps rural pets it is different but for all the apartment pets I see even if shots were effective which I highly doubt their chance of getting some of those diseases is higher for the owner than the pet. Far as I know I am not caught up on my rabies injections, Should I be?😁😁 Pretty sure lots of cats and dogs have to get rabies shots even though they never go out. Perhaps that has changed by I seem to remember taking the dogs for their rabies shots.
As far as carnivore pets eating carbs, probably the same deal but worse as with humans. Some humans can eat LOTS of pasta and do OK but many of us need to lean carnivore or at least keto or something to avoid complications of too many carbs. But a cat or dog is far more carnivore by nature than we are. Sure some can probably deal with some carbs but does not seem like something one should count on. Pretty sure cats and dogs for example can make their own Vitamin C whereas humans can't so they've adapted to not eating much in the way of plants. Humans NEED some plants and the argument is how much. But cats and dogs? Just seems intuitive they'd do better on fat and protein and bones than with excess plant base inputs. I've seen dogs chew on grass and cats like to mess with their catnip so perhaps they've evolved limited plant affinity. But would seem meat based is the way to go for them.
and while outside they could eat whatever they could catch. Also, cats nibble on grass and other plants. They likely got their "raw" requirements from whatever they could catch, even bugs, and also from nibbling on grass and other green things
Many interesting points, Janet! I wonder if this post would benefit those just staring out with understanding insulin resistance and weight gain? Maybe using the suggestions here would at least get a diabetic or someone struggling with weight issues on the right track? I think we need to figure out what works best for the individual since there are so many factors (past and present!) that play into our health ~ environment, stresses, toxins, availability of organic foods, etc ~ that it is impossible to have one solution for all. I appreciate that you shared other resources. I made note of them to share with family members who have some struggles. 👍🏼 The more tools we have access to, the better equipped we are to stay healthy.
It’s a very complicated issue. Diabetes was not my issue although as I was adding some carbs my blood test showed almost pre-diabetic. I’m not anymore. Insulin resistance is at the bottom of much of it. I was undereating and ultra low carb for at least 5 years. I started gaining weight at the end of it even though I was strict. I joined a program, Jay Feldman Wellness because I started having issues adding back carbs. He uses Ray Peat also but is a scientist in his own right. 100+ YouTube videos. His group of Hundreds are trying to get right with metabolism, thyroid damage and insulin resistance, most after being on these low carb, IF, fasting, etc. for lengths of time. After 21/2 years I’m finally stable and feeling better. I eat fruit again and potatoes. My thyroid is operating. My energy at 78 is all day. I have felt flim flammed by the gurus out there. I’m learning to accept some things because I feel so much better. We absolutely need glucose for optimal health and energy. Glucose created by gluconeogenisis uses stress hormones. I was never more stressed and anxious than when I was on strict keto. Losing muscle and bone too. So glad you are finding what works for you. This is my story, but I’m not alone. Ophra has injured her metabolism. Taking drugs or eating less and moving more won’t help this. I wish her luck.
Thank you for your input I like to hear everyone's stories it's very important to share information. We are all somewhat different in what we need to do, thank you for the U Tube referral I will check out that information as well
Check out Ray Peat
I am not sure what to make of some of Peat's ideas! He boasted of eating a quart of ice cream every day, but he claims that because he also consumed coconut oil he still lost weight. Not disagreeing, but, you know, if you read his entire article...well, let me know what you think!
Have you seen his many paintings? All are of naked women. Just saying.
Homemade ice cream without gums & stabilizers is pretty much the perfect food. Complete protein, calcium, carbohydrates, saturated fats, B vitamins. It’s a well balanced food that lowers oxidative stress and supplies the body with what it wants/needs to function optimally.
I have no opinion either way on what you say about natural, home - made ice cream, though you may certainly be correct. However, I don't recall Peat saying that he was consuming natural ice cream. He just said he was eating a quart "of ice cream" every day. Could've been some ghastly cheap stuff.
I have yet to encounter a health adviser who understands that "not one size fits all". Peat, too, seems to be in that category. He says it's healthful to eat saturated fat, avoid starches for the most part, lots of orange juice, coconut fat is miraculous, etc., no legumes or grains, get at least 80 grams of protein per day, etc.
I am not as yet convinced that everyone benefits from that type of diet forever. He does not specify if this is a temporary healing diet or not; he makes it sounds like yet another forever diet. If he has said otherwise then I apologize. Also, his scientific explanation for his viewpoints on what humans should eat goes way over my head. Do we have to be PhD-level scientists to know how to eat in a simple, normal, human way? I hope not.
I’d suggest checking out bioenergetic.life and listening to some of his interviews with Patrick Timpone or on KMUD if you want to start to get acquainted with his work
For a few yaers, I follow The Phoenix Protocol (August Dunning)......twice a year one week of dry fasting.
You step in a rejuvenated cleansed body, proliferated new stemcells, a clear mind.....try it
This article is beyond my comprehension. Not in the slightest bit revelatory. Just more dogma and pushing towards eventual metabolic dysfunction.
I’m absolutely loving the comments thread! Lots of people who are on the other side of restrictive diets and using their own intuition and common sense to heal!
bunch of ignorant commentators ...keep shoveling those corn flakes
very interesting. i remember back in the 70s when "Dr Atkins diet revolution" was the craze (basically keto) there was a consistent warning that being in ketosis was harmful to health - that circulating ketones wreaked some kind of havoc in the body. a quick search reveals that the simplest ketone is acetone - you know, a solvent used as fingernail polish remover!
and now people aim to be in ketosis non-stop? i dunno, sounds sketchy to me.
May I ask your blood type?
In your research, do you think that may be a factor?
I’ve been a type 1 diabetic on insulin for nearly 50 years and at 66, I weigh 8st. I’ve watched type 2 diabetics amongst family and friends being given insulin therapy and warned them all that they would just put on weight and worsen their insulin resistance and I’ve always been proved right but no-one listened to me. It’s not rocket science although the doctors you refer to in the essay make it sound so. This all happens because doctors/nurses spend too much time thinking just about keeping blood sugar low irrespective of weight gain. As the other commentator here suggests, keeping glucose levels low creates stress and anxiety, I know how uncomfortable that is and it’s also dangerous. The brain uses more carbs than any other organ and to keep it in a hypo state is unhealthy. Over the years I have been shocked at how little the medical profession understands glucose metabolism and even basic nutrition. The pharma companies are to blame because they make a lot of money from theses t2 diabetics on expensive insulins and it guarantees them an increasing income stream until the patient dies an early death. The nurses and doctors in general practice are taught diabetic management by the pharma companies so we shouldn’t be surprised that their knowledge is limited and biased towards insulin supplementation.
My husband had pre diabetes and started wearing a CGM last year in order to help him lose weight. Being mindful of his blood sugar helped him to lose 30 lbs and the happy side effects included no more migraines (after 20 yrs!) or awful acid reflux, and he even got rid of debilitating sciatic and back pain. Not on any meds at all. I started wearing one recently bc at 56 I thought maybe I had elevated blood sugars as well. Turns out, not even close. I read The Zone 30 yrs ago and have, since that time, almost always been mindful of how/what I eat, so the CGM showed that my insulin response is pretty much perfect. I never spike out of the healthy range. The widely available CGM is the best tool for health that has come on the market in my memory.
One of the most effective means of biofeedback there is. Even if you don’t have any issues, … yet, at least no issues that you are aware, if you have that CGM letting you the horror show going on under the hood you probably can easily and effectively change your behavior and your metabolic situation without that much drama or effort. But first step is you need to know you’re headed for a cliff. One of my biggest issues with modern medicine as regards blood sugar and metabolic issues that will be in the cards for most of us if we don’t have our eye on the ball is that by the time we are warned by doctors (perhaps when A1c is 5.7-6.0) we’ve probably been in a state of insulin resistance a long time. IE you’re not officially “diabetic” but the damage is already happening. Nothing beats an early warning system to allow you to apply the brakes on your excesses in time
Exactly! My husband had high numbers for a long time but the doc basically said that he couldn't prescribe him a CGM until he was actually diabetic. ("pre diabetes is not a diagnosis" or something like that). With the CGM and a very disciplined approach to eating (no sugar, no alcohol, low carb and whole unprocessed foods) it took him about 8 months to get his insulin response to improve.
I read someone's book one time and it revealed that the obsession's with "the sugar" (as my mom called it before eventually dying from the consequences), ... the obsession with sugar is in many ways a distraction from the other real bad guy, "the insulin". Hyperinsulemia is often (perhaps usually for all I know) the problem LONG BEFORE "the sugar" starts to clinically manifest in ways that get people's and doctors' attention.
And insulin in it's own way is as much of a "toxin" as sugar. It causes it's own set of harms and consequences same as sugar causes sticky glycated proteins and all sorts of other horrors. For one thing, as long as the insulin is high you are laying down fat rather than being able to burn it. It is way more complicated than that but the cliff notes point is we should be looking at insulin with the same obsessive vigor (if not more) as we focus on sugar because high insulin (on average over time) is a early warning sign you are headed for trouble.
Cliff notes again, if it is taking way more than normal amounts of insulin to keep your sugar in check you have a problem. IE, your sugar can look perfectly normal and perfectly in control and yet metabolically you're in serious trouble if your pancreas has to spray you down with high levels of insulin to control it. IE, you're "in control", but just barely. By the time systems start to fail (for example the pancreas gets exhausted) in a clinical way you already have been in trouble a long time before the failure.. "Failure" is defined clinically as a high A1C or some other marker but mileage (advice) varies according to the practitioner.
A friend of mine went to a functional medicine doctor and what he did rather than just measuring fasting sugar or A1X or whatever is standard was measure both sugar and insulin response over time. More complicated by far more informative. By knowing how much insulin it takes to control the sugar they learn things that measuring sugar alone can not reveal.
Bottom line is hyperinsulemia is just as if not more important than high sugar because it shows where things are headed way early. And insulin is NOT the benign thing we think it is. Yes we need it to survive but if it is ALWAYS high (even if our sugar is under control) it will be dam near impossible to lose weight.
At any rate. Lots of us have warning signs that are flashing red in our thirties and forties but we seem generally "ok" that I suspect lots of doctors don't call out till we are in our fifties and sixties and lots of damage has already been hitting the fan for a while. Get the metabolism in order and all sorts of things like weight and blood pressure etc often start to magically go away.
At any rate this is just my lay person understanding of it. Short story is we should not ignore insulin because it is a early warning marker (as I understand it). By just focusing on sugar (A1C, morning fasting sugar etc) we can get lulled in to thinking every thing is OK when it may be almost off the rails.
Very, very interesting comments. But for a more encompassing view, go to Chinese Medicine. They deal in syndromes called Patterns of Disharmony, not individual symptoms such as "high blood sugar" as if that's all there is to it, as you point out.
Some people will never get diabetes. Never. It is genetic, these things.
Thanks! I'll check in to it. It almost never is a single thing. In fact the thing you treat may be irrelevant to your real problem. As one of the many things I've read but gets a bit foggy, someone said something like "fix your metabolic issue and your blood pressure issue will often disappear". In western medicine we'll often throw a blood pressure reduction drug at it when the real problem is you need to lose weight and get your sugar/insulin in order. Everything is connected. You mess up your liver for example and your first problem may show up in kidneys or something seemingly unrelated. We don't do a good job of thinking about root causes. Instead we treat the end point of the cause
Do you have a suggestion for a device? 😊 Does your husband like the one he has?
Absolutely - we ordered his through levels.com and they provide a very good Dexcom CGM. I tried a different company called Lingo, it's a little bit cheaper. Seems to be fine but not sure it's as good as the Levels program. Either one would be worth it.
All of them make no mention of seed oils.
Or radiation poisoning. Or parasitic laden water. Or lipid nano particles. Unless you are exception ally wealthy you cannot realistically consume Piedmontese beef; a single 11 oz steak is over $37. You also cannot regularly consume uncontaminated produce based on lack of availability. Your farmers market growers are selling produce that has been subject to heavy metals from the skies and god knows what in the water and planted in dead soil aka dirt. Fat is great for the brain and nervous system but try sourcing fat that isn't preloaded with bioweapons. Anyone checked the price of "grass fed butter" from a country that doesn't inject the dairy cows or feed it crap feed? Before tariffs we are at over $10/lb. If we don't redirect the conversation and education to food SOURCING and PRODUCTION and instead continue to place blame on the disenfranchised human and big pharma we will only see this trend worsen.
Starvation is around the next corner and Big Ag/Pharma ain't gonna save ya.
Excellent and important article Unbekoming. However, these doctors/scientists are missing a big part of the picture.
Everyone seems to want to think that the current epidemic of diabetes and obesity is mostly due to modern bad eating habits.
The diet wasn't that much better 65 to 70 years ago. Lots of sugar, way more hydrogenated fats (margarine and crisco) and lots of nitrate-processed meats. Yet there was much less obesity and diabetes, fat children were rare, and the morbidly obese were almost never seen. Most kids and many adults drank heavily sugared "soda pop" regularly. Lots of children got "hostess cupcakes" or "twinkies" in their bag lunches along with potato chips.
Instant chemical and artificial color-laden packaged foods were the new great thing and most busy mothers with an average of 3 kids used them. "Better living thru chemistry" was the ubiquitous Dupont slogan.
Wireless radiation is the huge invisible component of the health mess. Chronic blue light exposure and lack of natural unfiltered sunlight compound the problem. Many animal and human studies have demonstrated the many ways these modern technologies damage and dysregulate our bodies on a cellular and mitochondrial level, thus leading to metabolic disorder, diabetes and obesity.
It's likely that the implanted CGMs (continuous glucose monitors) will actually make people even sicker due to the metabolic impairment from their near-constant wireless signals. Doctors promoting such devices might consider encouraging awareness about wireless radiation risks rather than promoting even more close-range exposure in the name of "healthcare".
Oh, dang it... I was wondering about the harms of wearing a CGM. 🤦🏼♀️
🎯🙂
Glyphosate, GMO foods, toxic chemical additives and aerosol spraying of chemicals 24/7- EMF saturating our environment = stress = cortisol spiking non stop = more fat needed by body for defense and protection = weight gain. Our health is being INTENTIONALLY DESTROYED via weapons.
The lean body mass retention or even building it is one of the most tricky for older adults because on top of everything else sarcopenia is starting to set in (loss of lean body mass with age). One has to lose the weight while trying to retain or even gain lean body mass as age is trying to defeat your efforts. It gets tricky.
Because I’m old, I remember when no one was fat, and people ate carbs all the time. Something else is going on that these physicians aren’t addressing.
Most of them say don't eat seed oils, and promote intermittent fasting too...
We also consumed vegetable oils, and no one had ever heard of intermittent fasting.
Our normal way of eating was distinct meals, not snacks every half hour to 'keep us going' - and sometimes we got sent to our rooms with no supper - no one worried that the little darlings were going to suffer horribly because of missing a meal
Many people with metabolic disorder don’t overeat, don’t snack, and eat the best quality food they can get (direct from farmers, organic, only raw dairy, etc., etc.). My husband and I fall into that category. Two meals a day, eating only when we’re hungry, prioritizing protein. Eating the way we do 50 years ago, we would have been slimmer than we are.
Glyphosate, which is nearly unavoidable. Massive amounts of chemicals, no matter how clean you try to live. GMOs. The plastic load we carry. And probably more that we don’t know about. We are being poisoned.
Really nice synthesis, but we keep repeating the same mistake in nutrition debates. We look for a single villain. Insulin. Carbs. Fat. Protein. When biology does not work that way.
People are born different, live different lives, and arrive at diets from very different physiological and emotional states. The same diet can heal one person and destabilise another.
At the root of most chronic disease, and even of cravings for foods the body does not actually need, is cumulative load. Toxicity. Ultra-processed food. Industrial seed oils. Constant eating. And simply overwhelming a system that was never designed to process this volume or frequency of input.
What is consistently missed is what sits upstream of diet altogether.
Circadian biology. Light and dark cycles. EMF exposure. Sleep timing. Movement. Nervous system tone. Our separation from the natural world.
Leptin is a good example. It is not primarily a calorie hormone. It is a light-, timing-, and circadian-regulated signal. Morning sunlight, darkness at night, proper sleep, meal timing, and environmental cues all determine whether leptin works or fails. You cannot fix leptin resistance with macros alone.
Many people now live almost entirely indoors, under artificial light, eating late, staring at screens, rarely touching the earth, often afraid of the sun. Yet sunlight, darkness, and contact with nature are not optional lifestyle extras. They are core biological inputs.
Until these foundations are addressed, diet wars will continue to go in circles. Not because people are stupid or dishonest, but because the frame itself is incomplete.
Very good points!
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I’m about a third of the way thru Ben Bickman’s book Why We Get Sick. While I agree that insulin is the flame, carbohydrates are the fuel. So the ultimate cause of insulin resistance is over consumption of carbs, add to that toxic seeds oils, and you have a killer combo.
And continual grazing, rather than eating district meals 1,2 or 3 times a day...
Blood sugar, insulin, weight gain - all problems of our times. One wonders why in past centuries obesity was both considered as a sign of opulence, and as such as beauty (Rembrandt): well fed people were healthy. And why even 60-70 years ago were there so few obese people compared to today?
I notice the most obesity in the western world where junk food, excess sugar and salt are part of the lifestyle of people. Add to that an extremely sedentary life and poor quality produce (too many pesticides, preservatives, poor soil nutrients) and we have a total disaster for not only insulin, fat, and so on, but for health in general.
To all that I would like to add the mental-emotional component as you cannot separate the body of a person from his inner psychological state. Our agitation affects hormone production. Constant agitation day in and day out causes constant function disruption - the body adapts its functions to respond to the agitation signals! The science of what exactly happens when we are affected by one or another kind of stress is complex, but the principle is pretty common sense.
May I offer yet another view on what drives insulin and blood sugar - that of German New Medicine and Dr. Hamer. He spent his whole life researching which kinds of mental distress signals trigger what type of reactions in the organs and functions of the body. Here is the description of the kind of distress that disrupts blood sugar levels, insulin and so on: https://learninggnm.com/SBS/documents/pancreas.html#Apha_Islet_Cells_PCL
You can read about the mechanics of what happens, but the main trigger are emotions related to FEAR, DISGUST, RESISTANCE. It is not as simple as saying that feeling those you get diabetes, but living in the kind of situation that constantly evokes those feelings all the time can disrupt blood sugar regularly enough to cause this problem to persist.
Then come the diets and lifestyle changes - yes, they will help those of us who have overcome the above mental-emotional triggers. But most people continue living with the same thoughts and life circumstances no matter what physical changes they try. As with any disease one has to take into account the WHOLE individual, not just the body mechanics. We can delve into minute cells and their minute functions, but if you isolate them from the whole body, you lose the picture and if you isolate the physical from the inner and outer environment of the person, you get partial answers to the problem.
Many therapists today are beginning to explore these connections. Mainstream medicine does not. Doctors are not trained to explore the living conditions or personality of their patients or what bothers them. Alternative therapies, ancient healing systems, they all incorporate and accentuate those factors, nothing is isolated on its own - because nothing functions in isolation.
If we work on the body but the mind continues to send distress signals, our very complex physical organism will respond to those signals no matter what we do. When you add the mental/emotional perspective to emerging modern therapies (which is happening more and more) you begin to see that physiology on its own, as it is used today (in extreme materialistic and mechanistic ways) is not enough. And you will begin to see what scientists with diplomas fail to even consider - that life includes our feelings and lifestyle and not just our body mechanics. Because nothing in life is THAT complicated...
"And you will begin to see what scientists with diplomas fail to even consider - that life includes our feelings and lifestyle and not just our body mechanics."
BRAVO.
A very interesting post. Everybody produces cures - but they all use different techniques. We should not think of this as strange. Something as complex a diabetes - it even has many different names and variations - has many different causes and consequences, and causes changes that are new, different causes. Only a cure can prove a cause.
I found the introduction interesting, the inability to gain muscle after a massive weight loss. But you didn't address this problem at all? Did any of these researchers tackle the muscle issue, or was the focus only on fat?
I got down to a perfect weight with carnivore. Plants are fucking poison.
I've been plant based for 60 years. Those bad poisons haven't killed me yet.
I love this! Although I love meats (and plants, too), I truly believe everyone is different. What works for one may not work for another
LOL. Plants = poison? More LOLs. Congrats to you!
wasn't me who said it. Iva Brain wrote "Plants are fucking poison". I was just responding to that absurdity. We know that plants are not poison. Entire populations have lived their entire lives on plants. We know that plants can be healing, plants make medicine, plants make our food taste delicious. So yes, I was mocking the statement "Plants are fucking poison". I mean really, why would anyone even think such a thing, much less post a statement like that in these comments?!
Oh, I know that YOU never said such a silly thing! I think it's great that you eat nothing but plants and are doing well. Do you take any supplements?
One thing I notice nowadays (past few years): Just about everyone and his dog has all fake teeth. Even young people in their 30s and 40s. WT heck is going on????Used to be if you had cavities, they filled them; if you had teeth pulled, you got a partial. If they were badly crooked, they got straightened. But now, the latest fad, costing many tens of thousands of dollars, is implants. Total tooth replacement, all top teeth & bottom teeth. They look so phony.
plant based. 95% of what I eat is plants. There have been times when I've been 100% plants. These days I'm able to get raw milk. I give it the Ayurvedic treatment: add turmeric, a couple of dates, sometimes add a little cinnamon, and slowly bring it to a boil. I know, I know, boil raw milk?! But the main reason I get it is number one, it's from Jersey cows, and number two it's not homogenized. Supplements. That has changed over the years. I don't take anything every day, but I do take Vit D and K2 fairly regularly. Also Magnesium and zinc. I've used various herbs over the years, but again nothing every day. I might do Reishi for a few days, or astragalus, or Rhodiola. Astragalus is the only one I actually notice an effect from, but it's very subtle. One thing we've kept on hand since reading about its efficacy against covid is Black Seed oil. If we feel like we're coming down with something, take a teaspoon of that and it seems to knock out whatever was coming on.
That's an interesting and obviously effective health regimen you've got there! Re prevention of colds and flus, when I feel it's coming on, I take home-made Fire Cider. Boy, does that work!!! And spite of its hotness, it does taste good.
And Gates wants us to eliminate carnivore...go figure
Add to this list the work of Derrick Lonsdale and Chandler Marrs. They co-authored the book, Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition, and Marrs has a website “Hormones Matter”
Excellent synthesis of the best available work!
Having incorporated most of their strategies, I've been seeing the best results from following those suggested by Dr. Sean O'Mara. He's also arguably the healthiest for his age and the most transformed from when he was a SADly diseased 48 year old MD. The thing is, his strategies are also the most "hard core". His goal is Health Optimization, not just normalization. Highly recommend! 💪🏻