The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson,

and is narrated by Tina Lehman.

Where I part ways with the popular keto movement,

the explosive growth of interest in the ketogenic diet has been a net good for the state of nutrition.

For one, people have accepted the fact that eating fat won't kill you,

and they're even getting clued into the benefits of eating it.

But there are places where I part ways with the popular keto movement. Let me explain

three of them. Number one, ketosis isn't the point. Ketones themselves have beneficial

mechanistic effects. It's true. The ketone body beta-hydroxybutyrate shows direct anti-inflammatory

action, even blocking inflammatory diseases

mediated by the NLRP Inflamazome pathway. Ketogenic diets exert their protective effects

on the brains of epilepsy patients through the anti-inflammatory actions of the ketone bodies,

and type 1 diabetics who experience reduced cognitive function because of low blood sugar see

those deficits erased by increasing BHB through dietary medium chain triglycerides.

Another reason ketone bodies themselves are so therapeutic is that they represent an alternative

fuel source for neurodegenerative disease patients

whose brains can no longer process glucose effectively. But epilepsy patients get results both from

full-blown medical ketogenic diets where you count the carbs in heavy cream and modified

Atkins diets where the carb count is relaxed. They're both equally effective. The obsession with ketosis

as a desirable state of being may be the ideal state of being for everyone misses the point.

Consider how worked-up people get over ketone measurements. Are they registering? Are the sticks

purple? What am I doing wrong? Some long-term ketogenic

...