Medical researchers in the USA, are investigating the various illnesses that plague humanity. Over the last twenty years, they have been discovering more and more about how our bodies work.
They talk of how our bodies run on carbohydrates (sugar) but can also run on fat: we are dual fuel energy burners. Medical researchers call this our “metabolic flexibility.” We can be compared to dual fuel cars that run on petrol but can switch to battery power when the petrol runs out. In our case we burn sugars derived from carbohydrates and when we are starving we can switch to burning fat. In the distant past, the human species has survived many periods of famine, and switching to body fat burning was an important way of surviving in times of food scarcity.
It is clear to researchers that due to our access to abundant food at all times of the day and even night, this switching ability has been lost in many, but not all people.
The Brain
This loss of switching or flexibility has consequences. Researchers now think this is a major cause of the epidemic of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and cases of memory loss. Many obese, fat people cannot burn off their stored battery – fat. And this affects the brain, too. Also note that in starvation mode, while the body burns free fatty acids made from fat cells, the brain, after the sugars are gone needs to burn ketones – if not, neurons die.
Normally, we do not often enter Ketosis (battery power) and generate Ketones – food for our brain. Ketones are water soluable fats, and because they are small, only these can pass the blood/brain barrier and enter the brain and act as food. Normal fat molecules are too large to enter the brain. After eight hours of sleep or effectively fasting, our brain is starved of glucose energy, and needs to switch to ketones, but many people cannot produce ketones, and so their neurons start to die. Researchers think this seems to be the likely cause of these diseases.
The problem is how to generate ketones and to understand how our bodies use them. Dr. Steven Gundry has written a book “Unlocking the Ketone Code.” This writing is based on an interview with him by Tom Bilyeu, a medical writer.
Dr. Gundry talks about the findings of his research into this area of fasting, ketones and the human body.
After about eight hours after the last meal the brain needs a new supply of energy. Ketones should be available to enable us to survive long periods of starvation.
The Ketone Diet
This is where a person deliberately limits his/her intake of carbohydrates and sugars and secondly, lowers his/her intake of proteins and changes his diet to consuming fat. This is called the ketone diet, causing our body to produce ketones. This is a very efficient dieting method. Ability to produce ketones make you an efficient body fat burner says Dr. Gundry.
Unfortunately, 50% of humans do not have this metabolic flexibility any longer, and 95% of obese people do not have flexibility to burn fat.
However, for growing children who have occasional seizures or epilepsy there is an oil, Medium Chain Triglicerate oil that can be used by the liver to produce ketones. Then children can eat their carbohydrates and still have ketones. This is very useful as children like to eat their cakes and sweets. With this oil they can grow into adulthood with a typical western (US) diet.
The Part Played by Mitochondria
Mitochondria are popularly called ‘The powerhouse of the cell’
The human body has many cells of different types. Mitochondria live in certain cells, especially liver cells. A liver cell can contain over 2,000 mitochondria all producing adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the fuel the human body uses for its energy.
Mitochondria are also in brown fat. It is the brown colour that tells us of the presence of millions of mitochondria in it. (In addition to supplying energy for the cell mitochondria are involved in cell growth and death, among many other things.) Brown fat also generates heat, so it keeps us warm.
What do humans need to do?
We need to move to rhythmic food eating and starving times as a habit so that we move in and out of starvation (ketosis) frequently – perhaps on a daily cycle. This cycling in and out of ketosis will keep us healthy. All this is helped by eating our food only within the short eating times or windows, and in this way we can reduce fat deposition and keep our flexibility.
Dr. Grundy suggests that occasionally we should not eat breakfast in the mornings but eat, perhaps at two o’clock that day and just eat well for six or seven hours and repeat this in the next day or two. In the interview he does not specify the nature and quantity of food. He opposes eating to the clock or a regular timetable and suggests we eat only when we are hungry.
Ketones are a signaling method that warn the mitochondria that there is food starvation and that they should protect themselves at all costs. The puzzling thing is that mitochondria then proceed to act inefficiently and waste calories and multiply their numbers to produce more heat. But by having more mitochondria, all these consume more food – and they burn off the fat in a greater quantity. This makes you an efficient fat burner.
Nothing is difficult to understand when it is explained logically and fully. PH. 1/5/2022
Re-submited by R.O.S