- High intakes of healthy fats – especially saturated fats – boost health and longevity. Those who got 35 percent of daily calories from healthy fats were 23 percent less likely to die than those who only got 10 percent of calories from fat.
- People who got 77 percent of daily calories from carbohydrates were 28 percent more likely to die than those who got 46 percent of calories from carbs.
- Other recent research shows a reduced-sugar diet can lower liver fat by more than 20 percent in just nine days.
Mitochondria – the tiny energy factories within your cells – generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy currency your body needs to run its systems. Your mitochondria are also responsible for apoptosis (programmed cell death), and serve as important signaling molecules that help regulate your genetic expression. Hence, the state of your mitochondria plays a key role in health and disease.
Once your mitochondria become damaged and dysfunctional, your energy reserves decrease, leading to a wide variety of symptoms, some of the most common being headache and fatigue, and leaving you increasingly vulnerable to degenerative diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and neurodegenerative decay.
Unfortunately, mitochondrial damage is more the norm than the exception these days, thanks to the prevalence of processed food diets, inactivity, lack of sun exposure and excessive exposure to toxins and non-native electromagnetic fields from cell phones, routers, cellular towers and more. All of these factors contribute to mitochondrial dysfunction. Fortunately, your body can regenerate and renew, regardless of your age – provided it has the proper fuel to do so.
A ketogenic diet – which is very low in net carbohydrates and high in healthy fats – is key for boosting mitochondrial function.
When your body is able to burn fat for fuel, your liver creates water-soluble fats called ketones that burn far more efficiently than carbs, thereby creating fewer reactive oxygen species (ROS) and secondary free radicals. Ketones also decrease inflammation, improve glucose metabolism and aid the building of muscle mass.
International Study Confirms Fat for Fuel Premise
The large-scale international study (known as the international Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology, or PURE, study) reports thathigh intakes of healthy fats – especially saturated fats – boost health and longevity.
Its research team recorded the eating habits of 135,000 adults in 18 countries – and followed the participants’ health for more than seven years on average. Those with the highest intake of dietary fat (35 percent of daily calories) were 23 percent less likely to have diedduring the study period than those with the lowest fat intake (10 percent of calories).
The rates of various cardiovascular diseases were essentially the same across fat intake, while strokes were less common among those with a high fat intake. The participants with the highest carbohydrate intake (77 percent of daily calories) were 28 percent more likely to have diedthan those with the lowest carbohydrate intake (46 percent of calories).”
Low-Fructose Diet Significantly Reduces Liver Fat in Mere Days
Another recent study found a reduced-sugar diet lowered liver fat by more than 20 percent in just nine days. Processed fructose found in soda, fruit juices and processed food is a major contributor to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
The study clearly showed that sugar is turned into fat, which may explain the epidemic of fatty liver in children consuming soda and food with added sugar. The study found that fatty liver is reversed by removing added fructose from our diet.
NAFLD raises your risk for Type 2 diabetes. A high-fat, low-carb diet has been shown to improve both blood sugar levels and blood lipids.
Dr. Robert Lustig (who investigated the role of fructose in disease for many years) commented on the results, saying, “Many people think that fructose provides empty calories. But no, they are toxic calories because they are metabolized onlyin the liver, and the liver turns the excess into fat.”
American Heart Association Has It All Wrong
In June 2017, the American Heart Association (AHA) shocked health conscious individuals around the world by declaring coconut oil dangerous.
However, the AHA had carefully cherry-picked outdated data from the 1960s and early 1970s. Moreover, none of these four studies actually involved coconut oil, which means the AHA is flat out making false claims when it’s identifying coconut oil as a dangerous fat.
Nutritional science has made significant strides since the ’70s, and many recent studies have repeatedly refuted the idea that high-fat diets promote heart disease.
Why Is the AHA Clinging to Outdated Science?
As noted by Nina Teicholz, an investigative journalist and author of “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet:”
“To me, the AHA advisory released in June (2017) was mystifying. How could its scientists examine the same studies as I had, yet double down on an anti-saturated fat position? With a cardiologist, I went through the nuts and bolts of the AHA paper, and came to this conclusion: It was likely driven less by sound science than by longstanding bias, commercial interests and the AHA’s need to reaffirm nearly 70 years of its ‘heart healthy’ advice …
Why the AHA is resistant to updating its view of saturated fats, despite so much legitimate science, could simply reflect the association’s unwavering devotion to a belief it has promoted for decades. Or it could be due to its significant, longstanding reliance on funding from interested industries, such as the vegetable-oil manufacturer Procter & Gamble, maker of Crisco …
In July of 2017, Bayer, the owner of LibertyLink soybeans, pledged up to $500,000 to the AHA, perhaps encouraged by the group’s continued support of soybean oil, by far the dominant ingredient in the ‘vegetable oil’ consumed in America today.”
Consider Experimenting With a Water Fast
A Multi-day fasts is where the only thing you consume is water and mineral supplements, and no other food or drink. It allows your body to seriously upregulate autophagy (destruction of damaged cells) and removes most of the damaged and premalignant cells in your body. It is a magnificent way to help cancer-proof your body. It is also outstanding for helping you achieve optimal body weight, and it can improve your health and extend your lifespan.
The more comfortable way to start a water-only fast is to fast 12 to 18-hour daily intermittent fasts for a few months. This will radically decrease any negative side effects. Your doctor should monitor fasts longer than 18 hours.
During his fast, Dr. Mercola experienced no hunger pains, no food cravings, lost 10 pounds. His ketones were 5.1, and his was blood sugar 45, which doubled the ketone/glucose index threshold Dr. Thomas Seyfried (a leading researcher) says is necessary to treat cancer.
Read more about the water-only fast in Dr. Mercola’s book, Fat For Fuel. Here is a link https://www.fatforfuel.org/
The Benefits of a Cyclical Ketogenic Diet
The cyclical or targeted ketogenic diet is high in healthy fats and fiber, low in net carbs with a moderate amount of protein.
Ideally, once you have established ketosis you cycle healthy carbs back in to about 100 to 150 grams on the few days a week you do strength training.
Health Benefits:
Weight loss – By rebalancing your body’s chemistry, weight loss and/or improved weight management becomes nearly effortless. Studies have shown a ketogenic diet can double the weight lost compared to a low-fat diet.
Reduced inflammation – When burned for fuel, dietary fat releases far fewer ROS and secondary free radicals than sugar. Ketones are also very effective histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors that effectively reduce inflammatory responses.
Reduced cancer risk – While all cells can use glucose for fuel, cancer cells lack the metabolic flexibility to use ketones. Regular cells thrive on them. Once your body enters a state of nutritional ketosis, cancer cells are more susceptible to being removed by your body through a process called autophagy. A cyclical ketogenic diet is a fundamental, essential tool that needs to be integrated in the management of nearly every cancer.
Increased muscle mass – Ketones spare branched-chain amino acids, thereby promoting muscle mass. However, make sure to implement cyclic ketosis. Chronic ketosis may eventually result in muscle loss as your body is impairing the mTOR pathway, which is important for anabolic growth.
Lowered insulin levels – Keeping your insulin level low helps prevent insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes and related diseases. Research has demonstrated that diabetics who eat a low-carb ketogenic diet are able to significantly reduce their dependency on diabetes medication and may even reverse the condition.
Lowering insulin resistance will also reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s. Recent research strengthens the link between insulin resistance and dementia even further, particularly among those with existing heart disease.
Mental clarity – One of the first things people really notice once they start burning fat for fuel is that any former “brain fog” lifts, and they can suddenly think very clearly. Ketones are a preferred fuel for your brain; hence, the improved mental clarity.
Increased longevity
One of the reasons you can survive a long time without food is due to the process of ketosis, which spares protein breakdown. A fairly consistent effect seen in people on a ketogenic diet is that blood levels of leucine and other important structural proteins go up, allowing these proteins to perform a number of important signaling functions.
Ketones also mimic the life span extending properties of calorie restriction (fasting), which includes improved glucose metabolism; reduced inflammation; clearing out malfunctioning immune cells; reduced IGF-1, one of the factors that regulate growth pathways and growth genes and is a major player in accelerated aging; cellular/intracellular regeneration and rejuvenation (autophagy and mitophagy).
Take Control of Your Health – And Help Others Do the Same
Excessive net carbohydrate intake is the No. 1 culprit behind skyrocketing obesity, diabetes and chronic disease rates, primarily by decimating your mitochondrial function.
Take control – eat a diet that allows your body to burn fat as its primary fuel rather than sugars. Weight loss is simply a natural side effect of rebalancing your body’s chemistry.
This Post has been condensed from Dr. Mercola’s post:https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/09/11/ketogenic-promotes-health-longevity.aspx?fbclid=IwAR1hZ3AAi61X9FLBmnBahOLaGCGAq2F3a6zMrEvyhvwzgjwEfJzFZpaHSf8
Please see the original for the Footnotes and Citations for the scientific studies.
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