Ketosis is an often misunderstood subject. It’s seen as undernutrition or a warning sign of something wrong with your metabolism. But nothing could be further from the truth, unless you are a poorly treated type 1 diabetic. [1] Ketones – contrary to popular myths and beliefs – are an essential and essential source of healing energy in our cells that comes from normal fat metabolism.
The whole body uses ketones in a safer and more efficient way than the energy source from carbohydrates – sugar, which is glucose. Our bodies produce ketones if we eat a carbohydrate-free or low-carbohydrate diet (less than 60 grams of carbohydrates per day). [2] With a diet very low in carbohydrates or without carbohydrates at all (like cavemen), we become keto-adapted.
In fact, what is known today as the ketogenic diet was the number 1 treatment for epilepsy before Big Pharma came with its dangerous cocktails of anti-epileptic drugs. It took several decades before we heard about this plan again, thanks in part to a father who wanted his 20-month-old son to have severe seizures. The boy’s father had to find out about the ketogenic diet in a library because his neurologist had never indicated this option. Following this diet, his seizures stopped in just 4 days, and never returned. [3] The Charlie Foundation was named after this successfully healed child. Today, the ketogenic diet is accessible all over the world and its curative effects are made known by word of mouth.
It is used to have a healthy lifestyle, but also for diseases such as childhood spasms, epilepsy, autism, brain tumors, Alzheimer’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease, depression, stroke, head trauma, Parkinson’s disease, migraine, sleep disturbance, schizophrenia, anxiety, ADHD, irritability, polycystic ovarian disease (PCOS), colon syndrome irritable, gastroesophageal reflux, obesity, cardiovascular disease, acne, type 2 diabetes, tremors, respiratory failure and almost all neurological problems, as well as cancer, and diseases where tissues must recover after a lack of oxygen. [4]
The organs and tissues of the body work much better when they use ketones as an energy source, including the brain, heart, and the center of our kidneys. If you’ve ever seen a heart beat in real time, you’ve probably noticed the thick fatty tissue that surrounds it. In fact, heart surgeons see it every day. A heart that beats happily is a heart surrounded by layers of healthy fats. Both the heart and the brain work at least 25% more efficiently with ketones than with blood sugar.
Ketones are the ideal fuel for our body, unlike glucose – which is harmful, less stable, more exciting, and which actually shortens your lifespan. Ketones are non-glycant, which means they have no caramelizing effect, making the body age. Healthy ketosis also helps starve cancer cells because they cannot use ketones as an energy source, they can only grow with glucose. [5] The energy producing factories in our cells – the mitochondria – work much better on a ketogenic diet because they can increase energy levels in a stable, efficient, constant manner, with long combustion. In addition to this, the ketogenic diet induces epigenetic changes [6] that increase the energy efficiency of our mitochondria, reducing the production of harmful free radicals, and promoting the production of GABA – an important brain-inhibiting chemical. GABA has an essential relaxing influence and its production, promoted by ketosis, also reduces the toxic effects of the excitatory pathways in our brains. Additionally, recent information suggests that in addition to having a general anti-inflammatory effect, ketosis relieves pain. [7]
The ketogenic diet works on several levels at once, which no drug could imitate. This is because the mitochondria are specially designed to use fat as an energy source. When they use fat as an energy source, their toxic load decreases, the expression of energy-producing genes increases, their energy efficiency increases, and the load of inflammatory by-products decreases.
The key to these miraculous healing effects rests on the fact that the metabolism of fats and its production of ketone bodies (beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate) by the liver is only possible within the mitochondria, which does not leave the products chemicals in the cell, but makes them readily available outside the mitochondrion, stimulating powerful anti-inflammatory antioxidants. The state of our mitochondria is the ultimate key to optimal health and although it is true that some of us need to be helped by dietary supplements to treat these mitochondria, diet is still the ultimate key d 'a good balance.
The basic energy source of our modern world is sugar, which must first be processed in "cell soup" before it can pass into the cell's energy production plant - the mitochondrion. Energy sources from fats do not require this treatment; they go directly into the mitochondria for energy uses. In other words, it is more complicated to create energy with sugar than with fat. As Christian B. Allan, PhD and Wolfgang Lutz, MD wrote in their book Life Without Bread:
You don't need carbohydrates to get energy. Fats provide more energy than a comparable amount of carbohydrates, and low-carbohydrate diets tend to improve your energy production system. In addition, many organs prefer fat as a source of energy.
The fact is, you have MORE energy in a molecule of fat than in a molecule of sugar. How many chronic and autoimmune diseases have an energy deficit component? Whether chronic fatigue? Or fibromyalgia? Rheumatoid arthritis? Multiple sclerosis ? The cancer ? Going back to Allan and Lutz:
The mitochondria are the energy production factories of cells. Since they produce most of the energy in the body, the amount of energy available depends on the proper functioning of the mitochondria. Whenever you think of energy, think of all those mitochondria that continually produce ATP to keep the whole body functioning well. The amount of mitochondria in each cell varies, but they occupy up to 50% of the total volume of the cell. When you're tired, don't just imagine you need carbohydrates; think about what you could do to maximize mitochondrial energy production …
If you could shrink until you could explore the interior of a mitochondrion, what would you discover? The first thing you will learn is that the mitochondrion is primarily designed to use fat as an energy source!
In short, let fats be your medicine and let your medicine be fats.
You would think that with all this information, health care organizations would widely recommend ketogenic diets, but alas that is not the case. Traditional nutritionists recommend carbohydrates, that is, sugar, as the staple of our diet. Among the (many) problems that result, this prevents fat metabolism from producing ketones, thus depriving us of their healing effects. Living in a world that uses glucose as our main source of energy means that our food - in more ways than one - does not encourage healing.
For almost three million years, we have been on a ketogenic diet and it has made us human. It was this way of life that nourished and developed our brains. This is no longer the case today, unless we all strive to recover this lost wisdom. Nowadays, not only is the human brain shrinking, but atrophy of the brain is the norm as we age and are faced with diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, senile dementia, etc.
Meanwhile, new studies are beginning to elucidate the key role of our mitochondria in regulating the cell cycle - a vital process by which a fertilized egg (single cell) develops into a mature organism, and also through which the hair, skin , blood cells and certain internal organs are renewed. During the complicated and highly choreographed events that accompany the progression of the cell cycle, the mitochondria are not simply spectators who only produce energy. On the contrary, they are full-fledged actors. [8] Given the large amount of energy required to make all the nutrients required for cell division, it makes sense that there is some coordination. The link between mitochondria and the cell cycle has been overlooked and neglected for a long time, but as we seek to understand the role of food on our bodies, it deserves much more attention. We are going to take a closer look at the subject of ketosis because it actually holds the key that opens the path to transformation for exceptional healthy living.
Mitochondrial dysfunction
The mitochondria are best known for being the factories that produce energy in our cells. But they also direct the genetic orchestra that regulates cell aging, division and death. They help dictate the genes that will be turned on or off in every cell in our body. They also provide the fuel necessary for new brain connections, and for the repair and regeneration of our organisms.
Whether we are housewives, sportsmen or workers, the question of energy concerns us all, every day and from every point of view. Our well-being, attitude and ability to perform the tasks that lie ahead are the individual measure of our energy. But how do we get energy from our food?
Many myths have been invented about energy production in the body and about foods that provide energy. Traditional science says that mitochondria use carbohydrates as fuel to produce energy. This process is called oxidative metabolism because it consumes oxygen. The energy produced by the mitochondria is stored in a chemical "cell", a unique molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Energy-filled ATPs can be transported through the cell, releasing energy when specific enzymes require it. In addition to the fuel they produce, mitochondria also create an oxygen-related byproduct called "reactive oxygen derivative" (DRO), they are more commonly known as free radicals. But what we are not told is that the mitochondria are specially designed to use fat and not carbohydrates as an energy source.
There are several very complicated stages in the production of ATP in the mitochondria, it will suffice to review the 5 main parts of its production to understand how energy is created in our mitochondria and why fats are the key. to optimize their operation. Do not focus on the terms, just try to capture the big picture.
Step 1 - Transporting the fuel source from food in the mitochondria
The fuel must first reach the mitochondria, where all the action takes place. Fuel can come from carbohydrates or fats. Fatty acids are the chemical name for fats, and medium and large size fatty acids are completely intact when they reach the mitochondrion, with the help of L-carnitine. Think of L-carnitine as a metro that transports fatty acids into the mitochondria. L-carnitine (from the Greek word carnis which means meat or flesh) is mainly found in animal products.
Carbohydrate fuel first needs to be broken down outside the mitochondria, and the product of that breakdown (pyruvate) is transported inside the mitochondria, and it can also be used to produce energy in a very inefficient way outside of the mitochondria by the anaerobic metabolism which produces ATP when there is no oxygen.
Step 2 - The fuel is transformed into acetyl-CoA
When pyruvate - the product of the breakdown of carbohydrates - enters the mitochondria, it must first be converted to acetyl-CoA by an enzymatic reaction.
The fatty acids that are already inside the mitochondrion are directly broken down into acetyl-CoA, in what is called beta-oxidation.
Acetyl-CoA is the starting point for the next step in the production of ATP in the mitochondria.
Step 3 - Oxidation of acetyl-CoA and the Krebs cycle
The Krebs cycle (also called tricarboxylic acid cycle or citric acid cycle) will oxidize acetyl-CoA, thus removing electrons from it and producing a by-product in the presence of oxygen in the mitochondria: carbon dioxide carbon.
Step 4 - Electrons are transported in the respiratory chain
The electrons torn from acetyl-CoA - originally from carbohydrates or fats - are tossed around by numerous molecules along the electron transport chain inside the mitochondria. Some molecules are proteins, others are co-factor molecules. One of these co-factors is an important substance found mainly in animal foods and called coenzyme Q10. Without it, mitochondrial energy production would be minimal. It's the same coenzyme Q10 the statins block, which has disastrous health effects. It is also during Stage 4 that water is produced when oxygen accepts electrons.
Step 5 - Oxidative phosphorylation
When electrons descend the electron transport chain, they cause electrical fluctuations (or chemical gradients) between the inner and outer membranes of the mitochondria. These chemical gradients are the driving forces that produce ATP in what is known as oxidative phosphorylation. Then ATP is transported outside the mitochondria so that cells can use it in any chemical reaction, which number in the thousands.
But why is fat so much better than carbohydrates?
If there were no mitochondria, the metabolism of fat for energy would be limited and not very efficient. But nature has provided us with mitochondria during our evolution, which especially use fat as an energy source. Fats are the fuel that animals use to travel long distances, hunt, and play, since fats provide more energy-filled ATP than carbohydrates. From a biochemical point of view, it makes sense that since we are superior mammals with mitochondria, we need to eat fat. While carbohydrate metabolism produces 36 molecules of ATP from one glucose molecule, fat metabolism produces 48 molecules of ATP from one fatty acid molecule in the mitochondria. Compared to carbohydrates, fats provide much more energy for the same amount of food. In addition to this, the burning of fat by the mitochondria - beta-oxidation - produces ketone bodies which stabilize overexcitation and oxidative stress in the brain (linked to all diseases), and it also produces epigenetic changes which - among others - produce healthy energy mitochondria, and decrease the overproduction of harmful and inflammatory free radicals.