my 3d printed mouse broke - the click upper didn't up anymore. With a new 3d printed part, the click upper now ups again.

Make sure to pick up your diabetes cupcake today

Saturated Fat

Often maligned for the damage glucose spiking foods and seed oils have done. Saturated fat has been the whipping boy of observational based researchers since the 1960s. That vilification doesn't hold up if you use a unbiased eye to review the literature: Saturated Fat from animal sources is good for you!

::: spoiler saturate fat easy to read article Saturated fat and health risks: the evidence to date

convincing evidence for a direct link between saturated fat and heart disease is lacking.

:::

::: spoiler saturated fat published paper Saturated Fats and Health: A Reassessment and Proposal for Food-Based Recommendations: JACC State-of-the-Art Review

Most recent meta-analyses of randomized trials and observational studies found no beneficial effects of reducing SFA intake on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and total mortality, and instead found protective effects against stroke.

Whole-fat dairy, unprocessed meat, and dark chocolate are SFA-rich foods with a complex matrix that are not associated with increased risk of CVD. The totality of available evidence does not support further limiting the intake of such foods.

We have done a deep dive on this paper before: https://discuss.online/post/28134438

:::

Animal Protein

The evidence against red meat is tenuous, relying on observational epidemiology (again), it doesn't hold up to unbiased examination.

::: spoiler animal protein easy to read article

What does the research show with respect to meat’s potential harm?

the data linking fat to cancer risk are inconsistent, incomplete, and unreliable.

The most consistent (albeit weak) associations between cancer risk and fat have been found over the years in observational studies looking at red meat and the risk of colorectal cancer. However, two more recent, important papers published in Annals of Internal Medicine make the case that available evidence from randomized controlled trials and observational studies does not support recommendations to lower red meat intake for prevention of cancer or heart disease.

For more on the science behind concerns about red meat and cancer, see our evidence based red meat guide.

Another question that has received much attention over the years is whether there is an association between fat intake and breast cancer. The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), the largest randomized trial to address this issue, found no statistically significant reduction in breast cancer risk with a lower fat diet. In addition, a meta-analysis of seven prospective studies including 337,000 women likewise showed no association between fat intake and breast cancer risk

Quote source

:::

::: spoiler animal protein published paper What is the role of meat in a healthy diet?

Despite claims by the World Health Organization (WHO) that eating processed meat causes colon cancer and red meat probably causes cancer, the observational data used to support the claims are weak, confounded by multiple unmeasured factors, and not supported by other types of research needed for such a conclusion. Although intervention studies are designed to test the validity of associations found in observational studies, two interventions of low-fat, low-meat diets in volunteers that failed to find a benefit on cancer were not considered in the WHO decision.

It is likely that the association of red-meat consumption with colon cancer is explained either by an inability of epidemiology to detect such a small risk or by combinations of other factors such as greater overweight, less exercise, lower vegetable or dietary fiber intake, and perhaps other habits that differentiate those who eat the most meat from those who eat the least.

We have done a deep dive on this paper before: https://discuss.online/post/25112884

:::

Philosophical defense of animal foods

The key concept is a food source that has been consumed in abundance throughout all of recorded history is not the cause of modern chronic diseases that only have skyrocketed in the last 100 years.

Fat and Meat didn't cause type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart attacks, obesity to explode - something that happened in the last 100 years did.

::: spoiler What if I'm wrong?

I'm sure there are lots of people chomping at the bit to tell my why I'm wrong: and I'm open to that. I just ask any evidence you want to argue with you have actually read completely yourself

it would be nice if the counter evidence

• isn't weak observational epidemiology with hazard ratios less then 2
• takes into account carbohydrate and seed oils confounders
• ideally a head to head interventional trial!
• doesn't use intermediate end points, but actually hard outcomes - the gold standard is all cause mortality

just remember: observational data (even meta-analysis of observational data) cannot inform us of cause and effect. The problem with epidemiological studies

If a hypothesis relies only on observational data, it must account for observational data in the other direction. If a hypothesis doesn't account for discordant observational data, it isn't a good hypothesis and must be discarded. i.e. the anti-meat theory needs to account for meat positive observations

:::

::: spoiler Good faith guidelines for literature discussion

• actually read everything you cite before you cite it.
• read the entire citation, not just the abstract and conclusion
• be willing to discuss what you cited in depth: by citing it your asking other people to read it to discuss it with you
• don't use a LLM to generate a wall of 'evidence' without reading it and understanding it completely
• citation bombing, i.e. dropping 20 citations, isn't a show of strength - it demonstrates weakness and an attempt to appeal to consensus
• talk about one point at a time - trying to overwhelm a discussion of one topic with many what-aboutisms, gish galloping, is a sign of weakness. :::

:::spoiler graphical flare :::

95% of every nutritional discussion on lemmy.

update - original art from https://poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/mad/

The problem with meat..... isn't the meat - it's the bad company it keeps

We are taught that meat is an unhealthy, artery-clogging, fattening, cholesterol-raising, heart-attack inducing, constipating, tumor-producing food that should be avoided like the plague, and that a plant-based diet is the holy grail of health.

To the best of my knowledge, the world has yet to produce a civilization which has eaten a vegan diet from childhood through death, whereas there are numerous examples throughout recorded history of people from a variety of cultural, ethnic and geographical backgrounds who have lived on mainly-meat diets for decades, lifetimes, generations. What exactly did these carnivorous cultures eat, and how healthy or unhealthy were they?

Cancer is a mitochondrial metabolic disease driven by impaired respiration and compensatory glucose/glutamine fermentation, not primarily nuclear mutations. Management centers on press-pulse metabolic therapy: lowering glucose and glutamine, raising ketones, and combining diet, fasting, hyperbaric oxygen, and targeted drug pulses.

A presentation by Professor Thomas Seyfried recorded during the March 2026 Grand Rounds of the Australasian Metabolic Health Society

::: spoiler summerizer Mitochondrial origin of cancer

• The mitochondrial-metabolic model links cancer to chronic damage in oxidative phosphorylation as the origin of malignant behavior.
• The somatic mutation theory is weakened by tumor nuclei regaining regulated growth in normal cytoplasm, while tumor cytoplasm drives death or dysregulated growth.
• Nuclear-transfer experiments in frogs, medulloblastoma mice, and melanoma mice place the decisive cancer defect outside the nucleus.
• The National Cancer Institute definition keeps cancer inside a genetic-disease view, while the lecture places the core defect in mitochondrial energy production.

Energy metabolism and tumor growth

• Warburg identified insufficient respiration and compensatory fermentation through glucose-derived lactate.
• Glutamine fermentation adds a second major fuel stream, producing succinate in damaged mitochondria.
• Glucose and glutamine supply ATP, carbons, and nitrogen for membranes, proteins, nucleotides, lipids, and other biomass.
• Lactic and succinic acid create an acidic microenvironment that supports invasion and weakens drug and immune effects.
• Reactive oxygen species arise downstream from damaged respiration and can produce the mutations seen in tumor genomes.

Cancer hallmarks from damaged mitochondria

• Cell-cycle disorder follows mitochondrial effects on nuclear gene expression and regulatory control.
• Loss of contact inhibition follows calcium and adhesion defects at the tumor-cell surface.
• Angiogenesis follows HIF-1 alpha and c-MYC opening glucose and glutamine transport pathways.
• Failed apoptosis follows dysfunction in the organelle that normally controls programmed cell death.
• Metastasis follows fusion between a cancer stem cell and a macrophage-like immune cell, creating a mobile glucose- and glutamine-driven cell.

Metabolic management strategy

• Management requires lowering glucose and glutamine while raising fatty acids and ketones.
• Cancer cells cannot rely on fatty acids or ketone bodies when glucose and glutamine are unavailable.
• Water-only fasting, calorie restriction, low-carbohydrate diets, ketogenic diets, ketone supplements, exercise, stress control, hyperbaric oxygen, and pulse drugs fit this strategy.
• The glucose ketone index tracks the glucose-to-ketone ratio, with values near or below 2.0 used as the therapeutic zone.
• Press-pulse therapy uses chronic metabolic pressure plus timed pulses against glucose and glutamine dependence.

Preclinical evidence

• In an aggressive mouse brain-tumor model, 40% calorie restriction on the same high-carbohydrate diet reduced tumor size by 65% to 80%.
• Higher blood glucose tracked with larger and faster tumors, while lower glucose tracked with slower tumor growth, lower inflammation, fewer abnormal vessels, and more tumor killing.
• Calorie-restricted ketogenic diet plus pulsed DON produced far better survival in late-stage experimental glioblastoma than either diet or DON alone.
• A juvenile high-grade glioma model used restricted ketogenic diet, mebendazole, and glucose-glutamine targeting, with longer survival and better quality of life.

Human and animal cases

• Glioblastoma outcomes have barely improved, and standard surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and steroids can increase glucose, glutamine, inflammation, and metabolic stress.
• The Alexandria glioblastoma case combined fasting, restricted ketogenic diet, awake craniotomy, modified standard care, and hyperbaric oxygen, with 24-month follow-up publication.
• Brittany Maynard is used as a standard-care contrast case: young glioblastoma patient, steroid effects, and medically assisted death in 2014.
• Pablo Kelly used ketogenic metabolic therapy without chemotherapy or radiation, tracked glucose and ketones for years, and lived 122 months after diagnosis.
• The Greece glioblastoma study pairs standard care with ketogenic metabolic therapy; four of six adherent patients lived at least three years versus one of twelve in the standard-care group.
• Triple-negative breast cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, and canine mast-cell tumor examples are used as broader applications of the same metabolic strategy.

Closing thesis

• Cancer management should avoid fatalistic terminal language when metabolic options remain.
• Mitochondria, not the nucleus, belong at the center of cancer origin and management.
• Substrate-level phosphorylation through glucose and glutamine fermentation drives dysregulated growth.
• The future cancer program is press-pulse metabolic therapy: lower glucose and glutamine, elevate ketones, and use coordinated metabolic tools.

References

• [00:00] Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer — https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118310311
• [02:00] Can the Mitochondrial Metabolic Theory Explain Better the Origin and Management of Cancer than Can the Somatic Mutation Theory? — https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo11090572
• [03:00] Hallmarks of Cancer: The Next Generation — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2011.02.013
• [06:00] Transplantation of Pluripotential Nuclei from Triploid Frog Tumors — https://doi.org/10.1126/science.165.3891.394
• [07:00] Mouse Embryos Cloned from Brain Tumors — https://aacrjournals.org/cancerres/article/63/11/2733/510012/Mouse-Embryos-Cloned-from-Brain-Tumors1
• [08:00] Reprogramming of a Melanoma Genome by Nuclear Transplantation — https://doi.org/10.1101/gad.1213504
• [10:00] What Is Cancer? — https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/what-is-cancer
• [11:00] On the Origin of Cancer Cells — https://doi.org/10.1126/science.123.3191.309
• [18:00] The Living State and Cancer — https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.74.7.2844
• [21:00] Cancer as a Metabolic Disease — https://doi.org/10.1186/1743-7075-7-7
• [21:00] Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: Implications for Novel Therapeutics — https://doi.org/10.1093/carcin/bgt480
• [21:00] Cancer as a Mitochondrial Metabolic Disease — https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2015.00043
• [22:00] The Calorically Restricted Ketogenic Diet, an Effective Alternative Therapy for Malignant Brain Cancer — https://doi.org/10.1186/1743-7075-4-5
• [23:00] The Glucose Ketone Index Calculator: A Simple Tool to Monitor Therapeutic Efficacy for Metabolic Management of Brain Cancer — https://doi.org/10.1186/s12986-015-0009-2
• [25:00] Press-Pulse: A Novel Therapeutic Strategy for the Metabolic Management of Cancer — https://doi.org/10.1186/s12986-017-0178-2
• [26:00] Therapeutic Benefit of Combining Calorie-Restricted Ketogenic Diet and Glutamine Targeting in Late-Stage Experimental Glioblastoma — https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-019-0455-x
• [29:00] Management of Glioblastoma Multiforme in a Patient Treated With Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy and Modified Standard of Care: A 24-Month Follow-Up — https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2018.00020
• [30:00] Terminally Ill Woman Brittany Maynard Has Ended Her Own Life — https://people.com/celebrity/terminally-ill-woman-brittany-maynard-has-ended-her-own-life/
• [31:00] Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy, Without Chemo or Radiation, for the Long-Term Management of IDH1-Mutant Glioblastoma: An 80-Month Follow-Up Case Report — https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2021.682243
• [33:00] Successful Application of Dietary Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy in Patients With Glioblastoma: A Clinical Study — https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2024.1489812
• [35:00] Ketogenic Diet as a Metabolic Vehicle Enhancing the Therapeutic Efficacy of Mebendazole and Devimistat in Juvenile Syngeneic High-Grade Glioma — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2026.102845
• [35:00] Efficacy of Metabolically Supported Chemotherapy Combined With Ketogenic Diet, Hyperthermia, and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Stage IV Triple-Negative Breast Cancer — https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.1445
• [36:00] Restricted Ketogenic Diet Therapy for Primary Lung Cancer With Metastasis to the Brain: A Case Report — https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.27603
• [36:00] Clinical Research Framework Proposal for Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy in Glioblastoma — https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-024-03775-4
• [37:00] Case Report: Resolution of Malignant Canine Mast Cell Tumor Using Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy Alone — https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1157517 :::

Josie talks about her journey on the carnivore diet. Josie Lieder spent 14 years vegan before developing severe ulcerative colitis, repeated bloody diarrhea, major health decline, and two hospitalizations. After introducing bone broth, then animal foods, then a carnivore diet, her digestion, skin, inflammation, weight stability, satiety, and mental health improved. She now maintains a mostly red-meat carnivore diet, avoids plant-food reintroductions that trigger symptoms

::: spoiler summerizer Early Health Alarm and Vegan Conversion

• At 11, Super Size Me gave Josie a sense that she had control over her health.
• At 13, a PETA tent at Vans Warped Tour led Josie to watch Earthlings and change her diet overnight.
• Josie became vegan immediately because she believed it was healthiest, most ethical, and best for her skin.
• In hindsight, Josie knew something was wrong with the Standard American Diet, but moved in the wrong direction.

Fourteen Vegan Years and Illness

• Josie stayed vegan for 14 years without cheating and moved from meat substitutes to whole-food plant-based eating.
• During those years, Josie had weight swings, dry skin, rosacea, poor mental health, and low self-esteem.
• After about 10 years vegan, ulcerative colitis hit with diarrhea 10 to 20-plus times a day and heavy blood in stool.
• Josie was hospitalized twice, and one doctor told her the severe episode could have killed her.
• Doctors told Josie it was genetic, lifelong, medication-dependent, and incompatible with full-time work or having children.

Breaking Point and Animal Foods

• In 2021, after another severe flare and years of avoiding medication, Josie tried bone broth.
• Within a week, digestion and skin improved enough for Josie to see a workable path.
• Over about six months, Josie reintroduced animal products in steps because she was still afraid of them.
• After four to five months, colitis symptoms were mostly in remission before beef returned.
• With beef and a meat-based diet, digestion, skin, inflammation, weight, and mental health improved further.
• Carnivore finished the process: normal digestion returned after nearly a decade, and plant-food tests still bring symptoms.

Identity and Social Response

• Reintroducing animal foods created a full identity crisis after a decade of vegan commitment.
• Health gains overrode guilt and social pressure because Josie's body was improving quickly and drastically.
• Friends and acquaintances were shocked, but their reactions did not change Josie's decision.
• Josie's fiancé started carnivore with her, improved too, and added white rice only because strict carnivore made him lose too much weight.

Current Diet and Routine

• Dinner is usually steak, ground beef, eggs, salmon, shrimp, or poultry, with red meat as the base.
• Red meat is about 60 to 70% of Josie's diet because she feels best eating steak and ground beef.
• Josie usually eats two meals a day, sometimes one meal when she is busy.
• Coffee stays in the routine: organic coffee with heavy cream, butter or beef tallow, and salt.
• Compared with vegan eating, cravings and food noise are gone, and a smaller amount of food brings complete satiety.

Current Commitment and Advice

• After about four and a half years carnivore, Josie has no desire to go back.
• Small additions like organic hot sauce or avocado usually bring brain fog or skin irritation.
• For people starting, Josie recommends a 30-day carnivore trial and a gradual transition when needed.
• Josie would step down from processed foods and excess sugar first, then vegetables, then fruit.
• Josie shares the journey, recipes, experiments, and Coming Around to Carnivore through The X Plant Eater platforms.

References

• [00:15] Super Size Me — https://morganspurlock.com/work/super-size-me/
• [01:02] Earthlings — https://www.nationearth.com/earthlings
• [23:03] Coming Around to Carnivore: From Skeptic to Thriving — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/coming-around-to-carnivore-josie-lieder/1148793261 :::

T-bones for breakfast, ground round for lunch, rib eyes for dinner. Does this sound like your dream menu — or your worst nightmare? Is a diet consisting of only animal products a simple, healing way to eat or an overly restrictive regimen that borders on an eating disorder?

A carnivore diet contains animal products only. It is plant-free. In its most extreme form, it includes only meat and water.

Read on to learn more about the zero-carb, carnivore way of eating. And find out the results — positive and negative — I experienced when I tried the diet for 30 days.

Dr. Ede is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and a pioneer in nutritional and metabolic psychiatry. With over two decades of clinical experience, she explores how dietary strategies—especially low-carb and ketogenic therapies—can profoundly impact mental health.

In this powerful session, Dr. Ede unpacks the science behind metabolic psychiatry and why it offers real hope for patients and practitioners alike.

::: spoiler summerizer Metabolic psychiatry and brain energy

• Metabolic psychiatry adds glucose, insulin, inflammation, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial energy to the older neurotransmitter-centered model of psychiatric illness.
• High glucose and high insulin can drive brain inflammation, oxidative stress, advanced glycation end products, and neurotransmitter disruption.
• Excess inflammation and oxidative stress can push glutamate far above baseline and damage proteins, lipids, DNA, mitochondria, the blood-brain barrier, and the hippocampus.
• Brain glucose entry is insulin independent, but brain glucose use depends on adequate brain insulin.
• Chronic high insulin can make the blood-brain barrier insulin resistant, so the brain can receive too little insulin while glucose remains high.
• Cerebral glucose hypometabolism is the energy deficit that links metabolic dysfunction to late-onset Alzheimer’s disease and serious psychiatric illness.
• Ketones cross into the brain even when insulin resistance is severe and burn well in a low-insulin environment.
• Ketogenic therapy can bridge the brain energy gap when more glucose or more insulin would worsen the metabolic problem.

Clinical evidence and active trials

• Alzheimer’s disease has long-standing metabolic evidence, including the type 3 diabetes model from Brown University and earlier insulin-signaling work.
• Cynthia Calkin’s bipolar depression trial used metformin to reverse insulin resistance, and mood improvement occurred in the patients whose insulin resistance reversed.
• Ketogenic diet research in psychiatry is expanding across bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, alcohol withdrawal, autism, Alzheimer’s disease, ADHD, and anorexia.
• The alcohol-withdrawal randomized trial found that people on a ketogenic diet required about half as much benzodiazepine and had fewer alcohol cravings.
• Albert Danan’s inpatient ketogenic diet analysis involved 31 severe, therapy-resistant patients with depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.
• In Danan’s adherent inpatient group, all 28 patients improved psychiatrically and metabolically, 43% reached clinical remission, and 64% left on less psychiatric medication.
• Ian Campbell’s bipolar pilot enrolled euthymic outpatients for an 8-week ketogenic diet and found strong adherence, average ketones around 1.3 mmol/L, and symptom links with ketone levels.
• Campbell’s spectroscopy data showed a large reduction in brain glutamate-related signal, with several participants refusing to stop the diet after the protocol ended.
• Shebani Sethi’s Stanford pilot placed outpatients with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia on a ketogenic diet for 4 months and found clinically meaningful psychiatric improvement in most participants.
• Randomized trials are still needed for serious mood and psychotic disorders, and new studies are underway or planned at Oxford, UC San Diego, Stanford, and other sites.

Clinical use and ketone targets

• Psychiatric ketogenic therapy needs clinician oversight when patients have serious symptoms, take psychiatric medications, or have anorexia risk.
• Medication interactions matter because antipsychotics and some anticonvulsants can make ketone production harder.
• For low ketones, insulin is the control knob: lower total carbohydrates, sometimes below 20 g; count total carbs; regulate protein; avoid snacking; and add resistance exercise.
• Whey, casein, dairy excess, sweeteners, frequent eating, and excess protein can keep insulin high even when glucose does not rise.
• A practical starting target is blood ketones between 1.0 and 3.0 mmol/L most of the time.
• Some patients improve with simple low carbohydrate intake and low glucose, while others need sustained ketones in a tighter or higher range.
• A fair trial requires consistent therapeutic ketosis for weeks, not occasional late-day ketone readings.

Q&A applications

• GLP-1 agonists can reduce appetite, glucose, and insulin and may help some patients bridge into ketogenic therapy, but responses can be positive, neutral, or counterproductive.
• Continuous ketone monitors may be most useful for patterns, timing, overnight changes, food responses, and hidden gaps in daily ketosis.
• Gut symptoms matter in psychiatric ketogenic care, and persistent constipation should lead to food-choice review after the adaptation period.
• High-fiber foods, cruciferous vegetables, nuts, seeds, chia, cheese, and dairy can be hard to digest for some patients.
• The quiet diet approach uses paleo, keto, or carnivore versions designed to be gentler on the gut.
• Fiber requirements for the microbiome are cast as untested, and many people with serious gastrointestinal symptoms improve when fiber is reduced.
• Mediterranean-style diet changes can help depression when they replace a junk-food diet, but the metabolic piece may require lower carbohydrate intake.
• Type 1 diabetes makes ketosis harder because injected insulin suppresses ketone production, so exercise and careful monitoring become more important.
• Women may have more difficulty entering ketosis during perimenopause and menopause because falling estrogen can worsen insulin resistance.
• Estrogen replacement may help some women improve metabolic flexibility, while progesterone may push metabolism in the opposite direction.
• Early Alzheimer’s patients who remain hyperglycemic and out of ketosis on low carbohydrate intake may need lower protein and higher fat intake.

References

• [00:01] Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind — https://www.gcp-balance.com/titles/dr-georgia-ede-m-d/change-your-diet-change-your-mind/9781538739075/
• [00:12] Impaired Insulin and Insulin-Like Growth Factor Expression and Signaling Mechanisms in Alzheimer’s Disease – Is This Type 3 Diabetes? — https://doi.org/10.3233/JAD-2005-7107
• [00:13] Alzheimer’s Disease Is Type 3 Diabetes—Evidence Reviewed — https://doi.org/10.1177/193229680800200619
• [00:15] Treating Insulin Resistance With Metformin as a Strategy to Improve Clinical Outcomes in Treatment-Resistant Bipolar Depression (the TRIO-BD Study): A Randomized, Quadruple-Masked, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial — https://doi.org/10.4088/JCP.21m14022
• [00:19] Ketogenic Diet Reduces Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms in Humans and Alcohol Intake in Rodents — https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abf6780
• [00:19] Ketogenic Diet Versus Gluten Free Casein Free Diet in Autistic Children: A Case-Control Study — https://doi.org/10.1007/s11011-017-0088-z
• [00:19] Randomized Crossover Trial of a Modified Ketogenic Diet in Alzheimer’s Disease — https://doi.org/10.1186/s13195-021-00783-x
• [00:22] The Ketogenic Diet for Refractory Mental Illness: A Retrospective Analysis of 31 Inpatients — https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.951376
• [00:25] Pilot Study of a Ketogenic Diet in Bipolar Disorder — https://doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2023.568
• [00:27] A Pilot Study of a Ketogenic Diet in Bipolar Disorder: Clinical, Metabolic and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Findings — https://doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2024.841
• [00:28] Ketogenic Diet Intervention on Metabolic and Psychiatric Health in Bipolar and Schizophrenia: A Pilot Trial — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2024.115866
• [00:31] Metabolic Mind — https://www.metabolicmind.org/
• [00:31] Ketogenic Diets for Mental Health Resources — https://www.diagnosisdiet.com/resources
• [00:44] Impact of Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 Agonist Deprescription in Type 2 Diabetes in a Real-World Setting: A Propensity Score Matched Cohort Study — https://doi.org/10.1007/s13300-024-01547-0
• [00:52] The Effects of Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy on Mental Health and Metabolic Outcomes in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial Protocol — https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2024.1444483
• [01:03] Stress Dynamically Modulates Neuronal Autophagy to Gate Depression Onset — https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08807-4
• [01:21] Child Bipolar Network Ketogenic Diet Approach to Depression or Mixed Mood in Bipolar Disorder — https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06920940
• [01:21] Food for ADHD and Depression — https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN62698625
• [01:21] Therapeutic Ketogenic Diet in Anorexia Nervosa — https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06000774 :::

Mackenzie talks about her journey on the carnivore diet.

::: spoiler summerizer Diagnosis and first exposure to carnivore

• McKenzie was diagnosed with lupus SLE at 23, after marriage and her first child, and before her second child was born.
• Her husband found an all-animal diet while looking into weight loss, and she first thought it sounded dangerous while she was 35 to 37 weeks pregnant.
• Watching him lose weight, improve his mood, feel satiated, and get excited about steak made her take the diet more seriously.
• He told her people called it an autoimmune diet and showed her videos of people improving with lupus and other autoimmune diseases.

Early lupus course and medications

• Her first symptoms were red bumps on her hands, neck joint pain on waking, and bleeding, peeling skin inside her nose and ears.
• A 10-day course of 10 mg prednisone cleared the skin problems, which pointed her doctor toward an immune-system problem.
• After she came off prednisone, fatigue, lower back discomfort, and a major sun-triggered flare developed after six hours outside on Memorial Day.
• The flare included a butterfly rash, rashes wherever sunlight hit, cracked toenails, swelling joints, severe fatigue, low appetite, and slow mornings.
• She was left in a full flare for about five weeks and did not get an official diagnosis until August, after the first major flare in May.
• Plaquenil, Imuran, and weekly Benlysta injections removed the classic lupus pain, stiffness, and most symptoms, but she did not want that to be forever.
• Doctors told her she might need night work, tinted windows, and lifelong medication because of sun sensitivity and photosensitivity.

First carnivore attempts

• About three or three and a half months postpartum, while breastfeeding and stalled after losing only 20 of 60 pregnancy pounds, she tried carnivore for 40 days.
• She felt much better quickly, but she was doing it poorly at first with lean chicken breast, too much seasoning and salt, and not enough fat.
• During that first 40-day run, she had mastitis a couple times, but her milk supply stayed stable, her baby gained weight, and her weight balanced out.
• She stopped after one piece of cake at a birthday-like event, spiraled off plan, and then went on and off carnivore several times.
• Last year she decided carnivore needed to be a year-long marathon, not a short sprint, if she wanted deeper benefits and autoimmune reversal.

One-year result and recent flare scare

• Her one-year mark was June 2, and by then she had no craving to add foods back because she felt satisfied and did not feel deprived.
• She is off the lupus medications now and has been able to spend time outside with her kids without zinc oxide sunscreen for over a year.
• Four or five weeks before the interview, she felt skin sensitivity and lower back pain return, so she found a new rheumatologist and checked her blood levels.
• She told the rheumatologist she was eating animal-based; he gave her Mediterranean diet paperwork, checked her levels, and told her to keep doing what she was doing.
• She then tightened the diet to beef, salt, water, and a little coffee for about three weeks, and the skin sensitivity went away again.
• She linked that scare to fasting, possible cortisol effects, and a new anti-aging skincare routine, not to lupus coming back.

Daily eating and household routine

• A typical day is five or six eggs with lots of bacon, water, sparkling water, coffee, then beef patties or ground beef with salt later in the day.
• Dinner is often more ground beef or a sirloin with butter, plus extra cold butter when the meat is lean, and electrolytes in sparkling water.
• Her usual foods are beef, butter, bacon, and eggs, with occasional Buffalo Wild Wings traditional wings fried in beef tallow.
• She does most of the cooking, including breakfast and lunch for her husband, egg-wrap beef lunches, chuck roast with bacon, and fresh air-fried steak.
• The grocery bill can look high up front, but the cost evens out by cutting Starbucks, convenience-store snacks, wasted groceries, medication, doctor visits, and clothing swings.

Family, work, and identity changes

• Her family and friends first thought she was crazy, especially as a nursing mother, and worried about cholesterol, constipation, milk supply, and sugar restriction.
• After adding standard foods back after the first 40 days, she had joint pain, fatigue, mood swings, irritability, and brain fog even while medicated.
• Her family became supportive after they saw major changes in motivation, joy, focus, work performance, and her husband’s view of her.
• As a pastor, she cannot be chronically fatigued, brain-fogged, sugar-addicted, nonchalant, and unavailable when people are in crisis.

Long-term plan and advice

• She does not see a reason to go back, because sweets now smell like candles, not food, she is satisfied, and she does not have cravings or food noise.
• For a 90-day carnivore trial, she would choose cold turkey for herself because moderation has never worked for her or the people around her.
• She would warn people about the first weeks: brain fog, irritability, digestive changes, and intense mental pressure to return to sugar.
• She would tell them to eat plenty of fat, focus on red meat and eggs, use cheese or pepperoni briefly if needed, and ignore addiction-driven thoughts until the body settles.

References

• [10:45] How To Carnivore - Dr. Chaffee's Carnivore Challenge — https://www.howtocarnivore.com/
• [10:48] Steak and Butter Gal — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvasvPW5q8Wwblqb_-6CkPw
• [10:51] Dr. Ken Berry: The Proper Human Diet — https://drberry.com/ :::

This is a 3 hour 'live stream', with with the skill and ease of a drunk burnout who is barely hanging onto their AV club membership.

It doesn't really get started until 30m. It is fascinating, everyone was operating in good faith.

They did try to do zero carb, but they couldn't quite do it, so they still had 12% carbs every day - so this is a meat based low carb. This works out to about 100g of carbs per day, which probably kept them out of ketosis.

28 days is just about long enough to adapt to a new diet, but the results should only be of interest they would need more time to stabilize.

The vegan stayed vegan, and the carnivore stayed carnivore after.

::: spoiler summerizer Low-carb vs plant-based swap setup

• The 28-day diet swap moved Vegan->LowCarb from a 10-year vegan/plant-based diet to a mostly animal-food low-carb diet, and Carnivore->Vegan from a 90-95% carnivore diet to a whole-food plant-based diet.
• The bloodwork stayed hidden from Vegan->LowCarb, Carnivore->Vegan, and Drew until Dave Feldman reviewed it live, and Dave also gathered input from four doctors with low-carb vegan, protein-centered, carnivore, and Mediterranean perspectives.
• Vegan->LowCarb's intervention was not a strict carnivore or ketogenic protocol because his macro split was about 58% fat, 30% protein, and 12% carbohydrate, with dairy and some non-animal foods entering the diet.
• Carnivore->Vegan's intervention used a typical whole-food plant-based pattern: fruit and nut butter, beans, rice, sweet potatoes, stir-fries, and two meals per day with coffee in the morning.
• The comparison has limits because the men differ by roughly 14 years, Carnivore->Vegan had recently lost about 100 pounds after being 120 pounds overweight, and neither diet was fully locked down by a meal plan.

Subjective outcomes

• Carnivore->Vegan's vegan month ended with low energy, workday naps, increased hunger, no satiation, worse digestion, major gas and bloating, skin issues showing up, and about 10-12 pounds of weight gain.
• Carnivore->Vegan felt normal again after returning to meat, could work a long shift without a crash, and saw no major digestive readaptation problem.
• Vegan->LowCarb began the animal-food month with a smooth transition, then had meals that left him down for 30 minutes to several hours, fatigue, slower thinking, brain-fog-like symptoms, and worse sleep.
• Vegan->LowCarb liked the steady lack of sugar high/crash and almost no gas, but he missed quick carb energy and returned to plant-based eating after the experiment.
• Vegan->LowCarb gained about 4 pounds after reintroducing plant foods, and Dave interpreted much of that short-term change as glycogen and water rather than new muscle or fat.
• Dave pushed back on judging face photos, because lighting, grooming, timing, hydration, sleep, and confirmation bias can make visual comparisons unreliable.

CBC, thyroid, vitamins, methylation

• Vegan->LowCarb's comprehensive metabolic panel was mostly quiet, but BUN rose to 23, BUN/creatinine rose from 11 to 24, and AST dropped to 13.
• Carnivore->Vegan's comprehensive metabolic panel was also mostly quiet, with glucose roughly stable, BUN lower near the bottom of range, a mildly high albumin/globulin ratio that drew little concern, and AST/ALT still low despite small rises.
• Vegan->LowCarb's RBC and hemoglobin ended slightly below range, and RDW improved only slightly toward the 12.5 target raised by doctor three.
• Carnivore->Vegan's RDW remained above the 12.5 target and improved modestly during the plant-based period.
• Doctor one raised thyroid concern for Vegan->LowCarb, recommended thyroid antibodies, wanted TSH near 2, and said thyroid replacement therapy might become relevant after medical follow-up.
• Vegan->LowCarb's B12 rose from 404 to 647 on the animal-food diet, while Carnivore->Vegan's B12 dropped from 439 to 321 on the plant-based diet.
• Both men had vitamin D concerns, with Carnivore->Vegan at 32.9 despite carnivore and night-shift work offered as one explanation.
• Doctors one, three, and four flagged folate and homocysteine concerns for both men and wanted MTHFR or methylation-pathway follow-up.
• The carnivore doctor viewed both men as likely too muscle-meat-heavy and not nose-to-tail enough, with possible riboflavin and folate issues.

Insulin, hormones, inflammation

• Vegan->LowCarb started with excellent fasting insulin at 2.9, but it rose to about 5 on the low-carb intervention; Dave still placed it in a good zone but wanted repeat testing because insulin can be pulsatile.
• Vegan->LowCarb's C-peptide also moved with the insulin rise, cortisol went down, testosterone went up, IGF-1 rose from 167 to 203, and homocysteine stayed high around 14 to 13.
• Carnivore->Vegan's fasting insulin improved from 4.4 to 2.1 on the plant-based intervention, which surprised Dave because Carnivore->Vegan also gained weight and lost energy.
• Doctor four had predicted Carnivore->Vegan would gain weight, drop insulin, lower metabolic rate, and dislike the plant-based intervention.
• Carnivore->Vegan's cortisol fell to 4.4 AM, the lowest Dave had seen in his own lab review experience.
• Carnivore->Vegan's IGF-1 fell from 202 to 156, and his homocysteine stayed very high at 17.9.
• Carnivore->Vegan's C-reactive protein moved from 5.1 to 1.11 on plant-based; Dave used the first result as a marker needing repeat testing after rest, low stress, no hard exercise, and better sleep.
• Dave's own CRP data showed large exercise-driven spikes, including 52.96 after a half marathon and 32.44 after a full marathon, while his baseline values were usually under 1.
• Dave's read was that CRP, fasting insulin, and lipids are his "big three" lab areas, and the doctors focused more on nutrient and endocrine flags.

Lipids and particle markers

• Vegan->LowCarb's lipid shift matched Dave's lipid-energy expectation: total cholesterol rose from 147 to 207, LDL rose from 47 to 119, HDL rose from 68 to 77, and triglycerides stayed excellent at 66 to 61.
• Vegan->LowCarb's LDL-P rose from 322 to 1128, roughly concordant with LDL-C, HDL-P rose from low range, small LDL-P stayed under 90, and LP-IR stayed under 25.
• Carnivore->Vegan's total cholesterol dropped from 222 to 149, LDL dropped from 156 to 82, HDL rose from 47, and triglycerides unexpectedly fell from 94 to 60 on the plant-based intervention.
• Carnivore->Vegan's LDL-P moved down with LDL-C, small LDL-P was 831 on the carnivore side, and LP-IR worsened from under 25 to 41 on plant-based.
• Carnivore->Vegan's lipoprotein(a) moved from 37 to 22 and LP-PLA2 activity followed the lipoprotein movement, which Dave saw as exciting for lipid-pattern tracking.
• Dave said that if he only had the labs and no subjective experience, the plant-based side looked better overall in this swap because of Carnivore->Vegan's CRP, insulin, triglycerides, and LDL movement.

Experiment reading and next design

• The lab winner was not the lived-experience winner, because both men disliked the swapped diet and both wanted to return to their original way of eating.
• Drew accepted that the plant-based labs came out slightly better in this test, especially triglyceride-to-HDL ratio, while still rejecting the idea that veganism was better in general.
• Dave said both lab sets contained a lot of good news, because most CMP and CBC markers did not draw attention and both men showed metabolic flexibility.
• The biggest practical gaps were missing food control, meal plans, blood pressure, DEXA scans, daily beta-hydroxybutyrate, free fatty acids, basal metabolic rate, and higher-frequency lab draws.
• Dave wanted future experiments to define allowed foods and macro targets in advance, use tighter animal-food and plant-based plans, and collect enough repeated measures to see transitions over time.
• Vegan->LowCarb said he would have benefited from simple prescriptive rules, such as a target amount of meat, organ meat, and fat, because tracking macros without coaching left him unsure.
• Gut microbiome testing came up as an unresolved but interesting future layer, because Dave wanted more controlled and higher-frequency testing than he had seen.
• Drew floated a future round with people already involved in health content, possibly with a whole-food plant-based chef creating a meal plan.
• The ending lesson is that this first run produced useful bloodwork and useful lived feedback, but the next run needs stricter design before it can answer harder vegan-versus-carnivore questions.

References

• [01:03] Cholesterol Code — https://cholesterolcode.com/
• [01:03] The Lipid Energy Model: Reimagining Lipoprotein Function in the Context of Carbohydrate-Restricted Diets — https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo12050460
• [01:03] White Bread and Processed Meat Experiment — https://cholesterolcode.com/the-tandem-drop-experiment-part-2-carbs/
• [01:16] An interpretable machine learning model of biological age — https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.17555.1
• [01:18] Red Blood Cell Distribution Width and Mortality Risk in a Community-Based Prospective Cohort — https://doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2009.55
• [01:34] Who Gets 67 C-Reactive Protein Tests? I do! — https://cholesterolcode.com/who-gets-67-c-reactive-protein-tests-i-do/
• [01:54] A Provocative Question About Cholesterol and Mortality — https://cholesterolcode.com/a-provocative-question-about-cholesterol-and-mortality/
• [01:59] Elevated LDL Cholesterol with a Carbohydrate-Restricted Diet: Evidence for a "Lean Mass Hyper-Responder" Phenotype — https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzab144 :::

• 258g distilled water
• 97g lye
• 544g lard
• 136g coconut oil
• 15g scented essential oil

• Slowly add lye to water, it will get hot.
• Melt your fats together, slow and low.
• When the water lye and fats cool to 110-130F (45-55C) combine them.
• Mix for ten minutes until it stiffens up
• Fold in your scent
• Spoon into molds

Conventional obesity treatment, based on the First Law of Thermodynamics, assumes that excess body fat gain is driven by overeating, and that all calories are metabolically alike in this regard. Hence, to lose weight one must ultimately eat less and move more. However, this prescription rarely succeeds over the long term, in part because calorie restriction elicits predictable biological responses that oppose ongoing weight loss. The carbohydrate-insulin model posits the opposite causal direction: overeating doesn't drive body fat increase; instead, the process of storing excess fat drives overeating. A diet high in rapidly digestible carbohydrates raises the insulin-to-glucagon ratio, shifting energy partitioning towards storage in adipose, leaving fewer calories for metabolically active and fuel sensing tissues. Consequently, hunger increases, and metabolic rate slows in the body's attempt to conserve energy. A small shift in substrate partitioning though this mechanism could account for the slow but progressive weight gain characteristic of common forms of obesity. From this perspective, the conventional calorie-restricted, low-fat diet amounts to symptomatic treatment, failing to target the underlying predisposition towards excess fat deposition. A dietary strategy to lower insulin secretion may increase the effectiveness of long-term weight management and chronic disease prevention.

Full Paper - https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0211

Some nutrition scientists and much of the public often consider epidemiologic associations of nutritional factors to represent causal effects that can inform public health policy and guidelines. However, the emerging picture of nutritional epidemiology is difficult to reconcile with good scientific principles. The field needs radical reform.

In recent updated meta-analyses of prospective cohort studies, almost all foods revealed statistically significant associations with mortality risk.1 Substantial deficiencies of key nutrients (eg, vitamins), extreme overconsumption of food, and obesity from excessive calories may indeed increase mortality risk. However, can small intake differences of specific nutrients, foods, or diet patterns with similar calories causally, markedly, and almost ubiquitously affect survival?

Paper (paywall)- https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.11025

Full Paper on Anna's Archive.

When examining the scientific literature on plant-based versus animal-based dietary patterns, we often encounter headlines suggesting clear superiority of one approach over another. However, beneath these seemingly definitive conclusions lies a complex web of methodological limitations, statistical interpretations, and research constraints that warrant closer examination. Interestingly a recent video on YouTube used the ‘study’ to recommend swapping to eating more nuts but they did not disclose that much of the research was funded by the California Walnut Commission. They also did not make clear that the food swaps did not actually happen and that it was all theory. [More continued in article]

https://theukcarnivore.substack.com/p/the-nuance-behind-plant-vs-animal

If you prefer to listen to the audio version of this article - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbp9kOpWFrE

Science thrives on questioning

Science is not a fixed set of truths; it is a process of continuous inquiry. Every landmark shift in medicine, from handwashing to randomized controlled clinical trials, began with someone daring to challenge accepted wisdom.