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Question for Scuba

My wife sent me an article recently about Keto salts, which purport to put the body into ketosis so it will burn fat.  If true, these salts are the equivalent of the Atkins diet without all the trappings associated with that diet.  My question for you: If Keto salts really do put the body into ketosis, would this be an alternative to your 3 day fast idea to coax the dormant stem cells out of hiding and into the path of the TKI?

The short answer is no.

Keto 'salts' will add exogenous ketones to the blood. Your body will burn these ketones and excrete them at the same time to get the levels down, but is not making any ketones on its own. Adding exogenous ketones is not wise in my opinion (because it is not 'normal'). I read the literature and understand the so-called pro's and con's mostly for athletic performance reasons (train the body to burn fat). But as long as you have carbohydrates stored in the liver (and muscles), the hormone signals do not trigger 'autophagy' which is required to trigger stem cell activation. What you truly want is for your body to "generate" ketones from its fat stores. Simply "eating" ketones does not do this.

Reality is - getting hungry as carbs are burned up is caused by hormones (leptin, ghrelin, et. al.) getting activated which causes genes to turn on and off. It is these genes that ultimately trigger stem cells. Without that 'hunger', you are not doing much. The good news is that once carbs are burned off and you enter true ketosis and your body generates its own ketones, hunger falls off dramatically (no more carbs to hunt for ... sort of speak) and you can remain in this mode for as long as you want by eating high fat (good fats), very low carb (hard veggie carbs are usually o.k.) and moderate to low protein (high protein triggers gluconeogenesis...i.e. sugar).

I fast one day per week (Mondays). I fast 3 - 4 days per week two - three times per year. It is during the longer fasts that I expect autophagy to kick in which activates stem cells upon re-feeding. I will also eat carbs once in a while and leave ketosis (ketones disappear within hours when I test). I eat carbs only for fun and also to make sure my sugar system (i.e. insulin) gets activated. But when I stop carbs, I do get that hunger feeling setting in - not so bad once you are keto adapted.

Thanks Scuba - I told her that there's no such thing as a free lunch, but she said to ask Scuba.  I told her it hurts me to think that she thinks that you are smarter than I and she said it shouldn't hurt because you are smarter.  You'd like my wife - LOL.