Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

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Re: Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

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J11 wrote: Is a prescription required?

Seems sort of pathetic.
I mean have they really managed to create a patentable medical food that is essentially entirely fat?
It's not patented. But it can be prescribed because it allows them to bill insurance companies very high amounts for what is otherwise not an expensive product to make. It is pathetic and it goes on in a lot of products. A good example are diabetic drinks from Abbott nutrition like Glucerna. It's basically cheap oil, a vitamin pill, and bits of sugar (Fructose) to give it a sweet taste. Anybody would probably be better off just eating a salad with a protein source.

One of the issues that bugged me when I looked at KetoCal was the source of the dietary fats (Sunflower, Soy, Palm Oil). I felt like I didn't have a good understanding on the quality of the fats in the product, though I did not investigate further than reading the label.
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Re: Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

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A non-patented prescription?
The plot thickens.

That would not have occurred to me ... ever.
It's all about building up a brand presence and false mystique as a "medical food" and then selling people lard shakes?
And of course, they need to be careful to protect their, er, intellectual property?

Learn something new every day.

It is reminiscent though of our loved one's enteral feeding solution.
Same deal, though non-ketogeneic.

Costs about $400 per month and there does not appear to be much intellectual property there either.
As mentioned on the thread before, it has been apparently well understood for quite some time that
there is too much iron in these feeds for those with neurodegenerative illnesses, though there has been
no effort to remove this excess iron from the feed.

I suppose it is best not to complain too loudly about such things as they do specifically mention in the pre-written
letters that parents of epileptic children are asked to send to their insurance companies that without a ketogenic
diet the expense for other treatment options is greatly more expensive.
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Re: Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

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J11 wrote:A non-patented prescription?
The plot thickens.

That would not have occurred to me ... ever.
It's all about building up a brand presence and false mystique as a "medical food" and then selling people lard shakes?
And of course, they need to be careful to protect their, er, intellectual property?
In the defense of the manufacturer, they would argue that what they are doing is creating a valuable product. They can guarantee the exact nutrient level in each shake (within an error tolerance). They can probably point to funded studies which show how certain patient populations respond to that exact nutritional shake. They produce these shakes in facilities that meet certain specifications for cleanliness and if the product says "does not contain peanuts or peanut allergens, etc." you can be guaranteed it doesn't.

A lot of hospital supply and medical supply companies produce products that have no patents. Aspirin isn't patented, but Bayer probably makes a fortune selling them to hospitals for $8 a pill.
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Re: Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

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Yes, the backroom economics of much of medicine is quite startling.
For example, the enteral bottle and enteral feeding tube companies label their products as single day use.
Hospitals are expected to toss these products each day for each patient.
This would cost $3-4,000 per year per patient.

With our loved one, we have used the same enteral feeding bottle for years and the same tubes for months.
We have been told that it really does not matter.
People do not have sterilized kitchens.
Simply washing out the enteral supplies daily and refrigerating them over night keeps them clean enough.
Last edited by J11 on Fri May 20, 2016 9:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

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J11 wrote:Hi, everyone! Just thought I should end the argument.

Curing glioblastoma after a 2 month restricted ketogenic diet?

Someone have any smelling salts?
I'm in total shock!

Wonder if this protocol could be used broadly in cancer treatment?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2874558/
I would not underestimate that kid. It is easy to do because it is clear the cancer and chemo have damaged portions of his brain. But that kid really seems to understand this stuff.
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Re: Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

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LanceS, which kid?
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Re: Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

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J11 wrote:LanceS, which kid?
My bad. I didn't click your link, figured you were talking about the Andrew Scarborough kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f5e9GbXvIk

Sorry. Hope you find something of interest in the link.
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Re: Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

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J11 wrote:I am getting excited about trying out the below treatment plan from the brain cancer patient.
Why wait for cancer to learn the drill?
I suppose if you do the drill every once and a while you could pretty much turn the wait into Waiting for Godot.

I was worried that the ketogenic diet would be overly complex.
Have to read a library of books to figure it out.
The below description shows how easy it can be.
A Moroccan friend, whose family are poor Berber peasants, has a family member with cancer. He asked what I would suggest. I suggested a water fast for 14 days. This is very simple for a poor person.

If you listen to the Seyfried interviews, his standard is a glucose/ketone ratio <=1 (with mmol/L units). To put this in perspective, this means if you have a glucose level of 70 mg/dL - that is 70/18.2= 3.8 mmol/L. So serum ketones would need to be 3.8 mmol/L or greater. Even for those of us who are ketotic, this is a stiff standard. For example, I'm usually at 70 mg/dL or thereabouts at the end of my 22 hour daily fast. However, my ketones are usually 0.8-1.5 mmol/L. So my glucose ketone ratio would be 2.5-4. When I fasted for 47 hours, my glucose dropped to around 57 and my ketones went to 5.6. So the ratio is 0.6, well within Seyfried's target. However, I've been keto-adapted since Oct 2009.

Seyfried talks about water fasting for 7 days or so to get into this range. I'm assuming this is for someone starting with a high carb diet.

If I wanted to employ Seyfried's protocol and I was not keto adapted, I'd start with that. You might want to watch Jeff Volek's video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8BY4fyLvZc Volek and Phinney have been researching this for a very long time. Their books are a great reference. http://www.artandscienceoflowcarb.com/ Getting into ketosis is simple. The question is how to do it most comfortably. You can just water fast and put up with the discomfort for a few days and after that you'll be fine. To be more comfortable and mitigate "keto-flu" you should consume sufficient sodium salt (5g/day, according to Volek & Phinney), additionally potassium & magnesium. Then you can optionally add MCT's through coconut oil, MCT oil or C8 (caprylic acid), which will cause your liver to make ketones even if you are not keto adapted. If you want to water fast, you might consider adding 25g/day of protein to offset any protein loss (a protein powder or even sardines).

If you don't want to test by pricking your finger, you can just water fast for 7 days and you'd likely be good. Maybe do this a couple of times a year as Seyfried suggests for prevention.

Toronto doc, Jason Fung, has a whole series on fasting, which he uses to treat diabetes & metabolic issues in his patients. His series starts here: https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/ ... ry-part-i/
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Re: Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

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Back in this thread there is a discussion of breath acetone vs. serum ketones. I captured a screenshot from a presentation on the Ketonix website. The person water fasted for 5 days. The graph only shows 3 days of data (that these are the last 3 days is implied). For the first two days shown on the graph the glucose and acetone are constant. Then there is a slope break. Serum ketones continue to increase - making the point they are a storage form. The person likely started from a high carb diet and it took a couple of days to start showing ketones. By way of comparison I was at 57 mg/dL (3.2 mmol/L) glucose and 5.6 mmol/L ketones at two days of fasting.

To visualize the Glucose/Ketone index, I've computed and put it on the graph. Likewise I've converted glucose into mg/dL for those used to those units. To me, the glucose seems high for a fasting person, but that is just my experience.
Acetone ketone glucose Ketonix.png
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Re: Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

Post by J11 »

Simply could not imagine the morality of anyone who would allow millions of people to suffer through an illness whose theoretical cure might have been arrived at perhaps a 100 years ago. Certainly would not be able to live without myself, if I were in the know on this one.

If we were to try to amp up the basic ketocure for cancer, what might be especially helpful?
Some of the trials conducted in cancer so far have included patients that were allowed to eat a 1500-2000 cal per day.
Some of the patients never developed ketosis.
Some of them appear to also sneak in some potato chips here and there.

Caloric restriction would seem to be a good one, though the starvation route to ketosis is quite low calorie already,
For the more serious keto clinical trials, perhaps ketone esters, 2-deoxyglucose (2-DG)?

This one seems very very serious. Reduce serum glucose to 0?
I am very unsure how one can bring down glucose levels that low without symptoms of hypoglycemia.

Starvation of cancer via induced ketogenesis and severe hypoglycemia
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25579853
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