“Babe, I’m Leaving”

“I must be on my way,” since Styx and Stones will break my bones when Alzheimer’s disease (AD) takes over. Even love cannot stop AD, but cutting short your intake of carbohydrates (carbs, sugars) completely, or at least significantly (p < 0.01) could save you from the grips and tribulations of this memorable disease. By the way, another name for AD, the name that should be adopted or added, is diabetes type 3. You read correctly. Diabetes! Of the brain, in the brain, around the brain! The book, Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar - Your Brain’s Silent Killers, by David Perlmutter (a practicing neurologist and Fellow of the American College of Nutrition) may become your best non-fictional read if you give it a little space and time between your meals.

We have been told and taught that the brain requires glucose (the carb par excellence) to function, yet over 70% of the brain is made of fat. Doesn’t it look like a blob of fat? Amazing blob, thinking fat, but a blob of fat nonetheless. The brain actually prefers ketones for its metabolism, not glucose. Ketones are alternative fuels for the body and the brain made by the liver when glucose is in short supply, which is a good thing, the best thing. And they are made from the breakdown of fats. Isn’t it also the reason why there are no essential carbs, whereas essential fats and essential proteins (amino acids) are aplenty. They are not sweet, but they are the sweetest for a healthy life. Being sweet is surely overrated. We are not dealing with sweet teeth anymore; sweet-to-fat-filled bodies have practically become a visible norm.

Unfortunately, fat is also derived from carbs when the liver and his helpers (gallbladder, pancreas, intestines) have no choice but to convert the clusters, the lumps, the hunks, the slabs of carbs into bad fat, which finds long-lasting housing around our bodies. We often look at fat with disgust, but the most sickening is a carb; all carbs. There are no good carbs. Small amounts (10 to 40g per day) can be managed by the poor liver and his fellow workaholics as long as these carbs come enveloped in fiber. It’s also the reason why most vegetables (not potatoes and their cousins) and a few fruits (avocados, coconuts, olives) can be consumed notwithstanding their carbs, since these sugary slaps are mostly cancelled by the fiber that they contain. Yes! Fiber is good for you, especially because of its carb-cancelling effect.

Net carbs are simply the total amount of carbs minus the total amount of fiber. It’s also the reason why a good ketogenic (keto) bar (40g) comprises only 2 to 3g of sugar, whereas a famous bar (Kit-Kat, for example) packs at least 20g for the same bar weight. Wouldn’t you rather consume ten keto bars than one Aero and the like, especially that you’d feel full with one to two keto bars. You’ll have to swallow a small case of Aero to feel satiated, but you’ll also feel somewhat nauseated. The best keto bar by far is the Canadian-made Good To Go. I buy them by the case (nine per case). I guess that this is free publicity for them (they are also available in the USA). I was eating one as I was typing this. Both delicious and healthy and always good to go even when you’re staying put.

Ketones are formed overnight and during dieting and fasting; periods when insulin (from the pancreas) levels are low but glucagon (also from the pancreas) levels and epinephrine (mostly from the adrenal glands) levels are relatively normal. This union of low insulin and relatively normal glucagon and epinephrine levels causes fat to be released from the fat cells. These little fats travel through the blood stream to reach the liver where they are turned into ketone units, which then circulate back into the blood stream and are picked up by the muscles and other tissues to fuel the body’s metabolism. In a diabetes-free individual, ketone production is the body’s normal adaptation to carb-starvation. Blood sugar levels never get too high, since sugar (glucose) production is regulated by just the right balance of insulin, glucagon, and other hormones.

“The time is drawing near.” Styx