Ketogenic diet & mitochondria

[Archie]

Asking everyones views , is ketogenic diet good for mitochondria function in general, better even than any so called normal diet which have more carbs ?


I just semi-randomly read again about feeding mitochondrias, and this caught my eye :

"One of its leading advocates is neurologist Jong Rho, who says that in battling mitochondrial dysfunction, ketogenic diets may rank among the most promising treatment strategies available. “When mitochondria are fueled by ketones instead of glucose,” Rho explains, “their ability to produce ATP is enhanced and free-radical byproducts are reduced.”

Rho references laboratory evidence showing that a ketogenic diet can be protective against many diseases that affect the brain and nervous system (and where mitochondrial function is key), including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, autism, even malignant brain cancer."

https://experiencelife.com/article/the-care-and-feeding-of-your-mitochondria/

http://www.jlr.org/content/55/11/2211

Then i thinked , Wait A Minute .... there is a glucose pathway inhibitor , what if it could be used for trick mitochondrioa to not use glucose , and sort of do a semi-ketogenic diet ? Any positive effect to mitochondiria ?

https://www.caymanchem.com/news/manipulating-mitochondrial-fuel-pathways


I dont know , just bringing this to the public for further discussion/ debate

 

[Wishful]

I think the set of inhibitors should be used in experiments to see what if any effect they have on ME. I'm not sure whether the drugs are approved for human experimentation. Another factor is whether they cross the BBB easily (I think ME is mainly a brain issue). Animals have been diagnosed with CFS, although I'm not sure how reliable that diagnosis is. Still, if inhibiting one of the pathways showed a dramatic effect on ME symptoms, that would be really helpful for understanding ME.

Side note: while checking whether there were any animals that could be used for testing ME, I encountered this:

'Tarello and his wife, who works with him, are also both diagnosed with CFS and treated themselves with arsenic compound potassium arsenite, reporting remission.'

Arsenic does affect mitochondrial function. I was willing to try arsenic as a treatment back in the early years of my ME, but I couldn't find any convenient source. Crushed LEDs (gallium arsenide) had poor bioavailability.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

what if it could be used for trick mitochondrioa to not use glucose , and sort of do a semi-ketogenic diet ? Any positive effect to mitochondiria

Some research indicates folks with ME may have alterations (or abnormal) metabolic issues with fatty acids/lipid metabolism.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5365380/#R34

How can the keto diet be good for us if that pathway is also impaired?

 

[Moof]

I was willing to try arsenic as a treatment back in the early years of my ME, but I couldn't find any convenient source.

It's carcinogenic. It's one thing to treat animals with it, but humans are much longer-lived than the species in which an ME-like syndrome has been reported, and therefore may be at greater risk of cancers. For this reason, the cost/benefit equation is different.

 

[Archie]

@Wishful I dont know either is the drugs for approved for humans . Crushed LED, not my breakfast choice ( break fasting ) Surely there must be easyer choises than arsenic ?

@Rufous McKinney Could the fatty acid issues comes from absorption problems also ? Some people dont have the required amount of bile , and so it can cause absorption problems with fat .

http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/smallgut/absorb_lipids.html

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Could the fatty acid issues comes from absorption problems also ?

Something is abnormal with bile as well, per recent research.

I just don't understand what these various metabolic "things" actually mean. I'm lost and in need of a translator.

 

[MariaMagdalena]

I just came off of a keto diet after 6 months of going fast downhill. It made me much much worse.

 

[wabi-sabi]

The keto diet made me much worse too. I think I lasted about a week before I had to stop. I found some research (sorry, forgotten where) that a keto diet promotes mitochondrial uncoupling meaning it makes energy production even less efficient and more messed up than it already is for us. (Same reason it's very good for diabetics, ironically.) If you look up uncoupling protein and keto diet you should find some some explanation. I don't know if that's what's really happening, but it sounded logical given the problems some researchers have found in ATP synthetase combined with how awful I felt. Now I try to follow a more mito disease diet-looking at mitoaction.org- and I found something on there about having a protein and a complex carb at every meal and never to go more than 10 hours without eating. That advice helps me a bit.

 

[Archie]

@MariaMagdalena @wabi-sabi I tryed water fasting earlyer this year, i almost got 3 full days on it, but i started to feel so weak i had to stop. I think it was in my case becouse i did not make sure to get chlorine, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium ..specially the sodium and potassium and so the water fasting was i think meant to fail as it wont work without electrolytes since once body goes to keto it start lose fluids more, and with fluids the electrolytes start flush out also more. But surely if anyone start feel worse and even crash it ownt work then . One possibility is also that keto start cause toxic buld up since the body start burn more fat, and toxins can be stored in fat tissues.


I tryed to read about the mitochondrial uncoupling meaning , but it looks complicated and i dont much understand of it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15048898

So look`s like the whole ketogenic diet is maybe a situation & condition related thing and also requires keeping electrolytes up . Maybe intermittent fasting would be better suited for people with mitochondrial problems ?And at least in my case, i would take glutathione supplements with any keto diet to make sure that mobilized toxins could be eliminated once they are going mobile....and activated charcoal etc.

 

[Wishful]

Surely there must be easyer choises than arsenic ?

That was a few years into my ME, before I knew about ME. I thought I had some ultra-rare chronic neuroinflammation that the doctors weren't going to help me with. I was also suicidal, most likely due to elevated quinolinic acid, so I was desperate to try anything. If arsenic-based rat poison had still been available, I'd have tried it. I was fairly focused on mitochondrial dysfunction at the time, and wanted to try some experiments with affecting the electron transport chain, and arsenic seemed the simplest choice. I think I found some other track to follow soon after that point, so I didn't try harder to find a more bioavailable source of arsenic.

I'd volunteer to test the three mito inhibitors.

 

[Archie]

I just noticed the text on each of those 3 inhibitors " WARNING This product is not for human or veterinary use "
I gues the inhibitors are for science use only then ?I should really read more carefully before writing .

If could help the cell`s create new mitochondrias , mitochondrial biogenesis , the new power factorys could make ATP much better , I dont know does PQQ for sure help make new mitochondrias, but i will use it to find out.

Chlorophyll and sun light might also help body make Q10 .

Rice bran have get some bad reputation becouse high level of arsenic detected

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14592-superfood-rice-bran-contains-arsenic/

But i would stay out from arsenic Wishful, there got be better ,more safe methods .

 

[Wishful]

" WARNING This product is not for human or veterinary use "

That doesn't mean that they're unsafe for human use. It just means that some lawyers got involved. Gotta have lots of disclaimers...

 

[godlovesatrier]

High protein low carb definitely seemed to help me hugely in the spring and summer. But this wasn't a typical keto diet, it was more like 130g of protein per day with around 100-140g of carbs (less was better but not necessarily every day). However I noticed after several months, I just experienced fatigue, but that may just have been because there wasn't enough fat in the lunchtime meal to fuel the body until dinnertime. I may try and increase the fats this time, if I can figure out how to do it.